


The Art of Discretion

by Valhella



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Art Restorer Nicky, Art heists to be more specific, Artist Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Daddy Issues, Double Life, Heist, Hostage Situations, Kidnapping, M/M, Organized Crime, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Secret Identity, Stalking, Suspected Cheating, Trauma, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:49:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27664975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valhella/pseuds/Valhella
Summary: "Don't 'tesoro' me. No more bullshit games, Joe. All cards on the table." Nicky's eyes are impossibly wide and brighter than Joe can ever remember them being. "Tell me what's going on."Joe just stares at him, at this man he is inexplicably and almost dangerously in love with, who he is most certain he would die for, and wonders how he can possibly answer without losing him..Renowned art dealer Joe Jones meets quiet art restorer Nicolò Genova at a gala, and they take things from there. But as Joe's mysterious past begins to come to light, he scrambles to do what he can to protect the love of his life, who also seems to be a magnet for trouble.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Past Nicky | Nicolo di Genova/Other(s)
Comments: 332
Kudos: 608





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HELLLOOOOO.
> 
> I have no idea where this idea came from. Marwan Kenzari in Wolf, maybe? It was on cable a few weeks ago and I thought, how about an organized crime AU? And this kinda came along from that. This is NOWHERE close to Wolf in terms of plot, by the way. 
> 
> The art is really just an excuse to make this a little sexier, lol. 
> 
> But basically, the Old Guard are a vigilante group fighting against organized crime for reasons that will become more apparent as I expand this universe (hint: law enforcement in this are VERY bad at their job). And Nicky, who is very much in love with Joe, is none the wiser because I love fics where he's completely oblivious c: 
> 
> WARNINGS FOR THIS FIC: canon typical violence, there will be talk of past abusive relationships, not so much in this chapter but definitely in the next couple. Yeah. Nicky has a piece of shit ex in this.
> 
> Enjoy!

Nicky hasn't had an asthma attack since he was six years old. Or maybe since his first year of secondary school. Regardless, it's been well over ten years, and it wouldn't serve _anybody_ in this situation if he died trying to kick the taillight out of the back of the trunk he was in with the limited space he had. Not himself, not the people who had stuffed him in here who _very clearly had the wrong person_ , not Joe, who Nicky knew would find him.

But did they have the wrong person?

He racks his brains uselessly but ends up drawing a complete blank. No, he was an expert in this, in conflict aversion, in doing anything and everything to avoid situations like this. The second he was able to catch even a whiff of something suspicious off his ex-boyfriend, something beyond maybe seeing somebody else behind his back, Nicky had his bags out the door.

Then he thought back to his father, and how he had always been the secretive type, but wasn't everybody's papà like that to a degree?

But it's not like that mattered now, bound as he was in somebody's trunk. And it's not like it mattered then. Everyone important to him in his life had told him at least once that he had a penchant for trouble. That he was a magnet for it. Christ, even Joe had thought no less.

 _Joe_.

As far as Nicky can tell he is the only one in trunk. Of course, between being chloroformed and waking up bound and gagged in complete and total darkness, he couldn't remember very much. Just the single, silent prayer before losing consciousness, the first one he can remember making since the death of his father, that wherever Joe was, he was safe. Still striking up deals, talking up silver-spooned assholes at the gala. And that when he gets back to their apartment, inevitably with a hand full of madonnas, he'll spot the crumple in the rug. The dent in the wall, right above the stand next to the door. 

He'd always had an eye for that sort of thing anyway, Nicky suddenly reasons. Kind, sweet, loving Joe, his hayati, who Nicky suddenly and sadly realizes, he seems to know very little about. 

Joe would find him.

And Joe might have the answers, he surmises, _terrified_. 

.

_**One week earlier** _

When Joe blinks himself awake, a little more sluggish than usual this morning, it's to George Michael demanding that he do just that. Wake up. Before he go-go's. 

_Unimaginative_ , Joe thinks.

"You wound me, _hayati,_ " Nicky says from his left. 

Oh. He said that out loud.

When he finally opens his eyes, fully this time, it's to the splendid view of Nicky's face, still a little kiss-swollen from the night before, his hair sticking up in parts.

Joe feels the pool of his own drool beneath him as he shifts his face to instead stare at the wall opposite their bed. "You're pathological." 

"And you're awake," Nicky says, pressing a kiss to the back of Joe's neck. " _Siri, pause music."_

Joe doesn't move.

"Oh _come on_ _,_ " Nicky rolls his eyes. "You don't think I'm funny?"

"Not as much as you do, _tesoro,_ " Joe says to the wall.

Nicky practically groans as he reaches over to tug at Joe, forcing him on his back. Before Joe can complain, Nicky straddles him lightning quick, one thigh on either side of him. "But you think I'm sexy?"

Joe breaks into a sleepy grin, hand suddenly outstretched to play at the light curls on Nicky's sternum. "Irrelevant."

"Hm," Nicky muses, bending down to playfully nip at the skin behind Joe's ear. "You didn't think it was irrelevant last night."

"No," Joe agrees, hand curling around Nicky's neck, "I was too preoccupied with other things." He pushes Nicky up for a kiss.

Nicky obliges, moaning into Joe's mouth before he pulls away to stare down at him. "My boyfriend. Joseph Jones, _l'artista."_

And there it is, almost on cue, that sad look that befalls Joe's eyes, completely out of his control, when Nicky calls him by his full name. And Nicky - sure, he gets it. Genova always hit a little different after the death of his father. It had been a lot easier to go by Nicky, his ex-boyfriend's uninspired nickname, then his father's affectionate _Nico._

To his credit, Nicky did his best not to prod in places he knew he wasn't very welcome. He never brought up Soumaya, Joe's sister, unless of course Joe would first. And everything seemed to lead back to her and her devastating death; Joe's refusal to talk about family, his aversion to his own name, his basically non-existent past. Hell, Nicky was sure at this point that Joe was never born, just materialized, maybe out of the ocean like Aphrodite - that would certainly explain his supernatural good looks - 

"I want to celebrate," Nicky says, shifting gears.

"Tesoro, you don't think we celebrated enough last night?"

"Well, I want to celebrate some more," Nicky says as he climbs off Joe. "How does 8:00 at Decades sound?"

"You know," Joe says, leaping off the bed to stretch, "you're the only person I have ever met who is capable of celebrating unemployment."

"Trust me," Nicky says, unlocking his phone to reserve their spot. "When you actually sell your first work, it's only gonna get worse."

Joe's smile to that reaches his eyes, and he begins stripping for his morning shower. In moments, he disappears behind the door of their bathroom, and then there is the unmistakable sound of water running. 

Nicky bends down to scoop up the mess of clothes they had left on the floor. The beginnings of a smile form on his face when he remembers the way they'd fallen into bed last night, a bunch of horny teenagers ripping each other's shirts off (quite literally. As of last night, Nicky owed Joe a new dress shirt). But who could blame them? Joe had just closed a major deal, his best this year, enough for him to abandon the dealership altogether and focus on his own work, the way Nicky always told him he should.

Dealing was always supposed to be a stepping stone, anyways. A way for Joe to get his foot in the door. And Nicky didn't hate the profession altogether, although many of his encounters with dealers were more or less ordeals. It's how he and Joe met, almost one year ago now, at a gala Joe was helping curate, portraits upon portraits of unknowns shining pristinely under pretentious fluorescent lighting, Nicky and his boss Queenie's hard work on full display.

Nicky remembers the night like it was yesterday. Joe making his way across the room, making idle conversation, asking Nicky about his process, yadda yadda.

("Really?" Nicky had quipped. "You really want me to stand here and explain away to you a process that took me four years to learn?"

"...yes," Joe had said, and Nicky had considered it, just for laughs, just to test Joe's stamina.

"Nicolò Genova," Nicky said instead. "People call me Nicky." 

Joe had smiled back, his eyes crinkling an absurd amount. "Joseph Jones.")

They'd gone from there, and a few dates later, they'd made it official. It was rushed, yes, maybe even irrational - he had only ended things with Julian months ago, and was still reeling from the discovery that his piece-of-shit ex had stalker tendencies.

But Joe...Nicky loved him, inexplicably. Unconditionally. 

Nicky was never one to fall into the "when you know, you know" camp - but with Joe...he just _knew_. 

It took Nicky two months to realize that Joe was the love of his life. It took only four more for them to move in together. 

He jumps out of his thoughts to the loud, unmistakable sound of a phone vibrating against wood. Nicky turns to look at his side of the bed, just to make sure it's not Queenie begging him to stop by that bagel place she likes so much (and he would. Less out of an obligation since she was his boss, and more out of his own intense need for bagels this early in the morning). But it seems to be Joe's phone, and it's ringing on his side of the bed, so Nicky goes back to picking up Joe's discarded tie, balling it up and perfectly slam-dunking it into the hamper across the room.

The phone goes off again. That's twice now. Maybe it was a work thing, and Nicky could let Joe know as soon as he was out of the shower. The phone vibrates for an irritating third time as Nicky makes his way back across the bed, just to catch a glimpse of a name.

 _Andy_ , the phone says, before it's listed as a missed call.

It's a shitty habit, and it's one he knows he needs to break, but he won't. He can't. Not since Julian, and the way things had ended there. So Nicky goes through the possible _Andys_ between him and Joe, and besides the barista at their usual coffee spot who complimented him on his Tracy Chapman shirt that one time, he draws a blank.

The phone goes off again, but this time it's a text.

 _Andy_.

Two more texts follow.

Nicky counts six before he starts feeling his heart vibrate in his throat. A shaky hand grips at the phone to bring it up to his face, all logic out the window as the texts refuse to come up, the phone continuing to demand the correct face ID to unlock.

Nicky hears the water stop running and almost slams the phone back on the nightstand in his panic. He rolls across the bed to his side, grabs at his phone instead and chews on his thumbnail and he stupidly plays casual.

Joe emerges from the bathroom, a towel draped over his hips.

Nicky slowly says, "you got a call. you got a million, actually." 

He didn't mean to say that last part, but it doesn't matter. Joe's head tilts incredibly slightly as he walks across the room to the nightstand, picking up his phone. His expression is frustratingly unreadable as he scrolls through the texts. Nicky averts his eyes when Joe leans across the bed to press a kiss to Nicky's forehead.

"Excuse me, _tesoro,_ " he says, tapping the phone against his palm as he strides to their bedroom threshold. Any other day his heart would flutter like it was the first time in this silly, long-established tradition between the two of them, calling each other pet names in the other's language, but instead he felt an anxious pit nestle its way into his stomach.

Nicky feels his head fall back against their headboard when the door slams shut behind Joe.

_"Cazzo."_

_._

Nicky struggles to remember how he got to work that morning. It's only when Queenie snatches the paper bag carrying two perfectly toasted bagels out of his hand that he's able to emerge from this incredibly weird, incredibly unsettling autopilot.

"Nicky," Queenie beckons.

Nicky's head snaps towards her. "Hm?"

"I said, onion or sesame?"

"Oh," he says. "Your call." 

"Suck-up," Queenie teases, shoving the onion bagel into her face.

Nicky doesn't even go for his bagel, instead straying away from the little kitchenette in their studio altogether to start laying to his tools for the day.

"You know," Queenie says through a mouthful of bagel, "breakfast is the most important meal of the day." 

"I can't really stomach anything right now, to be honest."

Queenie's eyebrows furrow in concern. "You feeling okay?"

"Yes," he lied. "Just...need a distraction is all." 

Against his will, the name _Andy_ occupies his mind. The three missed calls and eight missed text messages from whoever Andy was. The way Joe took the call in the other room.

Joe. _Julian_. Wait, Julian? Why was he thinking of -

"It's Julian, isn't it?" Queenie snaps.

Nicky looks up. "Huh?"

"I knew it," Queenie sets her bagel down and begins wiping crumbs off her fingers. "He found your new number, didn't he?" 

Nicky shakes his head, a little too quickly for his own good. "It's not Julian."

"I keep telling you. You need to go to the police."

To that, Nicky huffs a laugh. "Right. Because you and I both know how good they are at their jobs."

"That's not the point," Queenie continues. "Julian's thick. He won't know the difference."

"He's a _detective_ ," Nicky counters, "and, again - it's not Julian. It's - it's Joe."

"Oh." A strange expression falls over her face. It's a mixture of relief, Nicky assumes, with...concern, maybe? Curiosity. "Joe."

"Yeah. _Joe_ ," Nicky repeats before he realizes that he doesn't really want to talk about it, doesn't want to feed his own paranoia by treating this like an impromptu therapy session, so he changes the subject. "I keep saying the two of you should meet. I know you'd love him."

"Well, I put up with you so well, so it makes sense," Queenie flashes him a smile.

Nicky shoots her his best _ha-ha_ look.

"So, Joe," Queenie continues. "What happened?"

Nicky thinks long and hard for a moment, spares himself a second to actually wonder _what had happened_? 

And was he being reasonable? 

Julian's phone would always blow up.

Julian would always take calls in other rooms.

Julian would always cancel their plans last-minute, and it got to the point where he'd shaved Saturday off the agenda completely, and Saturdays turned to Mondays turned to Thursdays before Nicky had given up completely. Or - that wasn't the right phrase - he'd given in. Begged Julian for an explanation. Gave him an ultimatum: Nicky, or whoever he was messing around with behind Nicky's back. And when Julian didn't, when he assured Nicky he _couldn't_ , that's when Nicky had left. Nicky had spared him the benefit of the doubt for too long.

And it didn't end there, at least not completely; angry texts turned to angry calls, turned to Julian waiting for him outside his work trying to explain himself, to bystanders having to pry Nicky's upper arm out of Julian's grip when Nicky had told him for the umpteenth time that he was done trying to hear him out. 

But he _had_ spared Julian the benefit of the doubt. He could do the same for Joe.

"Nothing," Nicky settles on. "Nothing happened." 

.

"I know it's a shithole," Andy says, shoving microwaved black coffee into his hands. Her hair's returned to it's deep black color, all traces of the platinum blonde he remembers from their last endeavor essentially gone. "Save your breath."

It's not a shithole, _per-se_. It's certainly Andy's aesthetic. Rustic was the nicest way Joe could put it, and even then he was still being a bit generous.

Joe takes the coffee, contemplates setting it down entirely to - to what? Go in for a hug? It's not Andy's style, never was, but Joe loves her like a sister. Even if she disappeared on him for a year.

"You look good," he settles on, inevitably burning his tongue on the first sip.

"You look okay," she returns.

An uncomfortable silence befalls them.

"So," Andy continues. "Joe Jones, art dealer. Gotta say it suits you." 

"Thanks, _Andrea_ ," he returns. "Or, wait. Is it Annabel this time? Anya?" he pauses. " _Don't tell me it's Anastasia."_

Andy laughs behind her mug. "Quynh's favorite."

"Quynh," Joe repeats ruminatively. "Hear anything from her?"

"Just as much as you have," Andy says a little too quickly. She goes in for another sip. "She did say she'd come back to us when she's ready. And you and I both know she's a woman of her word."

"Right," Joe reasons, can't help but say, "but you-"

"Me," Andy huffs. "Yes. Me, _you._ All of us. She'll come back to _all of us_ , when she's ready."

Joe drops it. 

"What about you?" Andy asks.

Joe shrugs. "The dealership's doing okay. And I'm about to resign, but I'm sure they'll survive without me flirting my way into rich old white people pockets." 

Andy chortles at that. "I meant, anybody special in your life? You're looking a little...I don't know. Settled down."

Joe considers that. He doesn't take it as a compliment, letting it hang ambiguously in the air before slowly saying, "yeah, there's someone." He and Andy, they don't have anything to hide. "Nicky."

Andy's eyebrows go to the ceiling. "He? She?"

"He," Joe corrects. "And he's...he's all, Andy. And he's more. I've never been happier."

The truth comes so unnaturally to him in his line of work, but the words still feel so right.

"I'm happy for you," Andy says, and nothing else. They don't acknowledge it, don't have to - Joe already knows the impossibility of Nicky meeting Andy, or the rest of his family for that matter.

"Thank you," Joe says.

Andy sets her mug down. "I bet you're probably wondering why I came back."

"Enlighten me."

Andy breathes steadily through her nose. "Merrick's back." 

Joe shakes his head ruefully. "Shocking." 

"Book was right when he called him a cockroach on its back, determined to never stop kicking."

"I've got a lot more unkind words for him," Joe says through a shaky breath. Soumaya's smile flickers through his thoughts, entirely against his will. "Believe me."

"I know," Andy says quietly. "It's his son, Steven. He's...expanding the family business. Dipping his toes in dealing. _Art_ dealing."

"Oh, _Andy,"_ Joe says. Curses in some choice words in Arabic under his breath. "What are you going to ask of me?"

"Nothing," Andy responds. "Nothing _yet_." 

"I have plans with Nicky tonight," he admits, not to Andy in particular. 

"Cancel them," Andy dismisses. "He'll forgive you." 

"We can't fix this city," Joe argues. "We tried. Look where that got us, got Lykon." 

"It's not just about Lykon," Andy says. "It's bigger than that. Always has been, Joe. Merrick's going to run this city into the ground. I know you're not prepared to let that happen."

Joe hesitates. Then, "Book and Nile?"

"At the safehouse," Andy affirms. 

Joe pinches the bridge of his nose before throwing his head back, blinking at the ceiling, letting that oh so familiar _this is not going to end well_ feeling overtake him. Then he pulls out his phone, ghosting over the screen as he runs through excuses in his head to reschedule the thoughtful dinner Nicky had planned for them that night.

 _Tesoro_ , he settles on, _I am very sorry, and I promise I will make it up to you when I can. But I can't make it tonight._

Joe watches as the text sends, as Nicky reads it, as he begins typing out his response before he locks his phone and pockets it. 

"When do we start?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It goes without saying but I'm gonna keep things purposefully vague here in terms of setting lol
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this! Let me know what you guys think, and where you think this story is gonna go (I'm not entirely sure yet either, tbh). But I'm excited to expand this universe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE KIND WORDS FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER! I'm pleasantly surprised you guys are on board with this! It's quite literally the most random fic idea I think I've ever come up with ever. And reading back my internet history for the research I've done for this has been a journey. 
> 
> warnings for this chapter: past talk of abuse (mention of physical abuse), unhealthy thinking and coping mechanisms. brief mention of trafficking.

Nicky stares down at the text, willing himself to ignore the tens of thousands of needles that seem to be stabbing at his heart. 

_Are you okay_ he types out, backspacing to instead ask _Did something happen_ only to backspace again and settle on _Hope everything's aright._

With a follow-up question mark.

And then an inevitable, _no worries. I'll see you at home. ❤️_

Joe doesn't immediately reply and he doesn't have his read receipts on, so Nicky ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him he'd read Nicky's text and just chose not to respond. And that ends up being the rest of Nicky's shift, which he tries, and fails, to spend engrossed in the 1894 unknown piece Queenie had authorized that morning. 

This is fine. Things came up all the time, and Joe - tomorrow was supposed to be his last day at the gallery anyway. If anything were to come up, maybe it was a surprise going away party. And Nicky didn't like parties, least of all ones were he'd have to be surrounded by dealers all night, so it made sense that Joe wouldn't invite him.

But Joe would certainly tell him, right?

It doesn't matter.

Joe could be anywhere on the planet right now and Nicky's brain would always just short circuit back to Andy, whoever the hell that was, and why Joe would cancel plans that he genuinely seemed excited about just that morning. 

_No,_ Nicky chastises himself, _do not fall trap to that kind of thinking. It will only serve to drive Joe away, just like it did Julian._

Daddy issues - that's what Julian told him he had, point blank. At first it was brought up in jest, and then in the bedroom in the heat of the moment, and then it would find its way into the hundreds of screaming matches they'd had before Nicky had left him altogether. 

He wasn't entirely wrong, but Nicky wasn't sure if that was still exactly it. He'd loved his father. He'd taken after his love for art after all, his earliest memories going back to watching him appraise pieces in his little studio and impossibly stitch back together works mere days before a gala. His father taught him that anything could be fixed, and Nicky had always believed that, until he inexplicably went missing thirteen years ago. Well, missing was a bit of a stretch - Nicky had convinced himself a long time ago that Valerio Genova was dead, and no one else in his family seemed to believe otherwise, so Nicky tried, and failed, to leave the past in the past. 

It was an amalgamation of daddy and abandonment issues and it never failed to come hurdling towards every relationship he'd had like a molotov cocktail. 

Whatever it was, and much like everything else, Julian didn't have a lot of patience with it. Of their fights that had ended in broken glass, all of them had been because Nicky had overstepped in Julian's eyes, implied that Julian was being dishonest. Julian would always tell him his way of thinking would get him in trouble, and then prove it, and then apologize with magnolias within the next twenty-four hours while Nicky had spent the whole day at work lying about how he got his injury. It's why he hates magnolias.

Joe's never like that. Always stoic, always calm, always understanding; never once raised his voice at Nicky, nor his hand, which was certainly the bare minimum in a relationship. And he always touches Nicky like he's porcelain, fingertips brushing over his skin almost like knew where all the bruises Julian left behind were. And he didn't, not really; one year into their relationship, all he knew about Julian was that he and Nicky dated for two years, that Julian had a temper, that he behaved in ways that had Nicky believing he was unfaithful, and that once or twice their arguments would get a little physical. Nothing more, nothing less. Nicky didn't like talking about it, and Joe never pushed.

So Nicky shouldn't push back in return, right?

No. He should just trust Joe, because Joe's put his loyalty into practice, and proves it time and time again. After all, he'd only known Joe a year, and they had moved fast on each other's insistence; there were still layers to Joe, and Nicky shouldn't be scared or on edge. He loves Joe, loves that he still learns new things about him with each passing day. 

"Beautiful work," says Queenie's voice from above him.

Nicky looks up from where he's just finished rubbing solution across the 1894 unknown subject's right forearm, a thick coat of brown-yellow grime starting to dissolve and reveal bright, bountiful colors. 

"Thank you," he says.

.

The studio isn't in tiptop shape, but it's still the way Joe remembers it best: spacious, homey, with the signature Andy touch of a dark and grey color schemes - some faded reds now too, ever since Quynh decided to help upkeep the place. In the back of his mind, Joe wondered if Andy would ever open the place up again. Wether or not she liked to admit it, teaching jiu jitsu was less of a means to keep bread on the table, and something he could tell Andy genuinely enjoyed, if she enjoyed anything at all. 

"C'mon," Andy calls, beckoning him to the "employees only" door that lead to the basement and then to their underground safe house, and Joe realizes he's been standing in the middle of the studio, just...taking it in. Realizing that as much as he had tried not to, he'd missed this. Missed the studio. Missed Andy. 

After a quick descent down the familiar creaky stairs, he can feel his face light up when he spots a tuft of blonde hair. 

"Well, _well,"_ Booker starts, getting up from where he’s sitting by a wobbly table, "look what the cat dragged in."

"Sebastien _,_ " Joe says, a bit in relief though Andy had already confirmed he was all in. The two men go in for an embrace, clutching at each other like it's been much more than just a year. 

When Booker pulls away, he gives Joe a look up and down. "You're looking very well fed."

"Oh, is that we're gonna call it?" Joe balks in good nature. "Nile," he says next, when she comes up behind Booker. Her hair's longer, cascading down her back in long eloquent braids, and she somehow looks younger. 

"Hey, _you,_ " Nile says, arms around his neck. "Thanks for not leaving us squares behind."

"Oh stop," Joe says after returning the hug. 

"You actually presented a Rembrandt this year. Why am _I_ reminding you of this?" 

"She reminded us at least three times on the way up here," Booker chimes in.

Over Nile's shoulder, the vague shape of one more person emerges from a dimly lit part of the room until Joe is face to face with a man in a dress shirt and slacks. 

"Joe, this is James Copley," Andy says, gesturing vaguely towards the man. "Ex-Homicide."

Joe doesn't break eye contact with Copley as he moves to sit next to Booker. "Thought we had a rule about cops."

"We did," Andy says, "and we still do. Copley's been feeding us intel since March, and he's been in Merrick's innermost circle since December of last year."

"Yusuf," says Copley, holding out a hand that Joe doesn't shake. 

"Soumaya Al-Kaysani," Joe says suddenly, and his voice does not waver one bit. "Does that name mean anything to you?"

Copley nods gently, once. "She was...a part of my research into the homicide unit. Along with my wife, Helen. I am so very sorry for your loss, Yusuf, and I - I understand your pain. We're on the same side here." 

The sound of a flask opening fills the room. "I'll drink to that," Booker agrees.

"Merrick's hold on the department is too strong," Copley continues. "His right hand man, Keane, just made lieutenant, and I'm fairly certain most officers would rather keep it that way. It's why I left - there's no way to take it down, not even from the inside, not when Merrick's still kicking." 

"I'm sorry, but which Merrick are we talking about?" Booker inquires. "Because if I'm remembering properly, about four of these shitheads are walking around with their heads still attached to their necks."

"Steven Merrick," Andy pulls up a photo on her phone and then slides it across the table for Joe to see.

Joe stares down at the picture ons screen. It's a man, mid-twenties perhaps, fairly young to be involved in this kind of shit, not like that was an excuse. He's actually _smirking_ in the photograph, eyes smugly looking to the left, like he knows the camera's there. A real twat, if Joe was going to be brutally honest.

"Third-in-line to the Merrick fortune. Desperate to make daddy proud. The older Merrick handles guns, the middle one runs drugs...Steven here's found the Merricks a brand new currency. Art."

With a tilt of her head, Joe already knows to start swiping, and sees a Friedrich, a Rousseau - _that cannot be a Caravaggio -_

"I'm sorry," Nile cuts in, and Joe is reminded suddenly of her youth and newness to the group, having only joined two years ago, "we have a mole in the most powerful crime family in the city, maybe in the country, and you want to, what? Steal some furniture?"

"You're really oversimplifying it," Copley contributed.

"I don't think I am," Nile says. 

"I'm with her," Joe shrugs. "Put me in instead of Copley, and I'll teach him to beg for his life in more than five languages."

"As much as I'd love to see that, that's not it works. It'd be like...taking out the Queen of England," Booker expresses. "It'd suck for a while but they'd just put another sorry son of a bitch in her place. We can't go after Merrick, at least not yet, so we have to go after his resources." 

"Exactly," Andy agrees to the half-assed analogy. With a tilt of her neck, Joe swipes to another photograph; a painting, it looks like. Or a panel. Early Dutch, by the looks of it. A bunch of uppity white men on their horses, perhaps Phillip the Good if all that money he had spent art school was worth anything-

" _The Just Judges,_ " Joe and Nile say at the same time.

Andy exchanges a knowing look with Booker.

"A Van Eyck. And a missing panel of the great Ghent Altarpiece," Copley provides. 

"Officially?" Andy says, "it's been missing since 1934. None of us could tell you how it fell into Merrick's hands, because a paper trail for that kind of thing doesn't exist. But set aside your geeking out for a second, and listen to me when I say that Merrick intends to use it as collateral."

"For who?" Joe looks up incredulously. 

After a quick silence, Copley says, "Viktor Lebedev." 

Andy nods solemnly in acknowledgment as Booker, Nile and Joe swear under their breaths in different languages.

Where the Merricks lacked, the Lebedevs seemed to thrive. They dealt everything: money laundering, guns, drugs, _girls_ \- any kind of disagreement between the two factions was to the advantage of the city, and Merrick practically reaching out with an olive branch meant...

Well, Joe didn't know. And he didn't want to find out.

"Copley's in smuggling, so as far as where it's being kept, he's none the wiser. But he can vouch for one of us," Andy continues as if on cue, "we were thinking Nile, maybe, in all her art nerd glory, but...now that you've agreed to this, Joe..." she trails off.

Joe doesn't need her to finish. He and Andy were always the type to finish each other's sentences. And right now, he knows she's asking him to squeeze himself into Merrick's inner circle, butter Merrick up (which wouldn't be hard - it was, after all, how Joe made a living), report back to them on were exactly the panel was being held, steal said panel, and then feign absolute shock when Merrick's plans more or less fall through.

Not the _best_ plan, but Joe's certainly been pitched worse. 

"I'm in," he says after a while.

Andy nods at him, Nile shoots him a look of incredulity, Booker a look of pride, and Copley the quintessential reassurance that he could pull Joe out of the op whenever. 

The next few hours are spent comparing blueprints, Booker testing out a new array of hidden cameras, and Joe running through a list of several of Merrick's potential buyers to see if he'd be able to recognize anybody. Unsurprisingly, he does; rich people always managed to weasel their way into the grey area of gold, guns and girls. Joe doesn't dismiss any of it; just makes a mental note in the unfortunate event he'd have to come across these people. 

By the time Joe finishes his Chinese takeout, he pulls out his phone to several unread texts and the stark realization that it's about half past 10:00 pm.

"Fuck," he gets up from where he'd been going over lists with Nile.

"What's up?" Nile asks, startled.

"Nothing, I - I just have to be somewhere." 

Nile crosses her arms; Booker shoots him a wink. 

"Ooo," Nile coos like they're all in high school, "who's the lucky fella?"

"Nunya," Joe says, texting Nicky a quick _on my way home_ without looking up. 

When he does, it's to Nile's unimpressed face. "You really think I'm gonna walk into that?"

"A guy named Nicky," Andy says, and Joe thinks _unfair_ , because he didn't even know she'd been listening. "Joe, we have recon tomorrow. Make it."

Joe nods in a _where else would I be_ kind of way, slips his jacket on, and is gone. 

.

Joe passes by Decades on the brisk walk home, and realizes then and there that it's Friday, and their desert menu is available after hours. So he walks in without thinking at all and orders two slices of opera cake, because it's the only think left on their display, and prays the ganache won't melt by the time he makes it home.

When he gets back to their apartment, it's - well, not what he expects at all.

The lights are all on, and the distinct sound of the dryer tumbling their clothes is overpowering. 

" _Joe_?" That's Nicky from the other room. 

" _Tesoro_ ," Joe calls back out.

Nicky's in their kitchen in moments, clad in sweatpants and a sleep shirt, a basket of freshly done laundry leaning against his hip.

"Are you doing the laundry?" Joe asks, even though it's abundantly clear that that's what Nicky had been doing.

Nicky sets the basket down tentatively. "Yeah. You...weren't texting me back and I wanted to wait up for you. And then I got anxious. And then I had to distract myself, and _Parks and Rec_ wasn't doing it for me."

Just like that, guilt washes over Joe like a splash of cold water. Which isn't fair, Nicky never intends that; he's just being transparent, and Joe will always love him for it.

"I'm...sorry, Nicolo," Joe sputters an explanation, "our clients today were..." he scrambles for a word. "Old friends."

Nicky nods his understanding. "Right, I get it. A meeting probably turned to dinner turned to drinks."

Joe returns the nod ruefully. Then he remembers he's carrying desert and jerks his hand forward. "I stopped by Decades. They were out of pana cotta, but who doesn't like opera cake?"

Nicky smiles, only slightly. "I'm not hungry," he says honestly, "but thank you." 

"Tomorrow, then," Joe says, making his way to the fridge. 

"They shouldn't be keeping you this late," Nicky points out. "Not when tomorrow's your last day. I almost called Patrice."

 _Thank god_ _you did not call my secretary for her to tell you I haven't been at the gallery all day,_ Joe quietly regards. Then, it hits him. The lack of explanation he'll have for the next few days when he'll be...well, more or less, committing crimes. 

"About that," he starts, turning around, eyes darting to the floor. Even then, he can tell Nicky's eyebrows have reached the ceiling. "I kind of. Didn't."

It wasn't entirely a lie. He'd still be dealing art. Just not at the gallery, and for a literal crime lord. 

"Didn't...resign?" Nicky tries to confirm, voice unlaced in any kind of vitriol, a pleasant surprise to Joe. 

"Yeah," Joe says. "I mean, no. I mean, yeah, you're right, I - I didn't resign." He's an art dealer. He never stammers. But now, even a year later, he still finds himself stupidly in need of Nicky's approval.

"Oh," Nicky tightly responds. "Okay. That's...well, unexpected." 

"It's just, Nielsen and Barnes - they just signed with this up and coming contemporary, and the gala's in a week and I expected they'd need all the help they could -"

"Joe," Nicky reassures, the beginnings of a smile reaching his tired eyes. "It's fine. You don't have to explain yourself."

Joe doesn't deserve him. "You're not mad?"

Nicky shrugs. "How could I be? I don't control you."

"No, but...you seemed so excited about me leaving."

"I was excited because you were excited," Nicky reasons. "I mean, just yesterday you said you were happy to finally be free of the knowledge that, and I quote, ‘your ass is perpetually jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth’ - and I never disagreed with you. If you've had a sudden change of heart-"

"Trust me, it shocked me just as much as it did you," Joe expresses, which ... is the wrong thing to say. Something sad passes over Nicky's sea colored eyes. Almost like he knows Joe is hiding something. Which, fine - though they were attached at the hip, Nicky _was_ right, he didn't control Joe, and neither did Joe control Nicky. But most of the last year had comprised of them making decisions together, like moving in, like picking out the color scheme of their new apartment, like...the resignation. 

It hurt, it had to unless Nicky wasn't entirely invested in their relationship, that Joe had made so drastic a decision, and behind his back.

"I'm sorry," he says before he can stop himself, taking a step towards Nicky.

"If you apologize one more time, I'm going to kick you out," Nicky chastises, though his body gravitates towards Joe. 

Joe takes two more steps until he is face to face with Nicky, his hand finding its way to the back of Nicky's neck as he ghosts a kiss over his lips and says, "I thought of nothing all day but you."

"That's very dramatic," Nicky replies as he leans into Joe. 

"It's true." Joe plunders his tongue into Nicky's mouth, takes in his scent, observes...well, fresh laundry. And a little bit of aftershave. And Nicky, his Nicolo, his tesoro as much as he was Nicky's hayati.

Joe doesn't remember exactly how the make it to the bed; he's too busy thinking over the ways he can make this up to Nicky after he puts Merrick's head on a pike. Then he berates himself for thinking of Nicky in the same context of Merrick at all, because Nicky - who _truly_ hated when Joe tended to romanticize him - was just that. Pure. Unknowing. Innocent through and through, completely undeserving of the cesspool that was this city. 

When he shoves away the thought entirely, Nicky is sitting on the foot of their bed, sweatpants bunched around his thighs, his cock pink and swollen between his legs. Joe stares at it mouthwateringly, slips his thumb into Nicky's mouth and watches as he takes it pliantly, perfectly, goes in to lift a leg over his shoulder - 

But suddenly, Nicky refuses to budge, slipping his leg back onto the mattress. 

Regret immediately washes over Joe. "Oh, _tesoro,_ " he says. "I'm sorry - have I done something - ?"

Nicky shakes his head, a jerky movement. "No. No, you're perfect, like always, I just...I'm tired tonight. And I can see how tired you are too." He bends down to press a kiss to Joe's forehead. "We'll have all the time for this tomorrow."

Tomorrow, Joe distantly and dolefully thinks. 

.

Joe falls asleep quickly and quietly. Nicky takes quick showers, so when he emerges from their bathroom to find Joe quite literally passed out - he can't help but wonder exactly how many drinks with dinner he had. How long had the conversation been drawn out? 

Had Andy been there?

No, _Nicky_ , stop it.

In earnest, he'd wanted Joe the second he'd heard the key in the lock, even when it was going on 11:00 pm and he was having trouble ignoring his growing agitation and anxiety. He'd shoved it down entirely when Joe looked just about ready to fall to his knees with apologies (and opera cake, to boot).

But Nicky, and Joe knew this, he'd never really been capable of going on autopilot during sex. And that's what would have happened just moments ago. 

Julian's unkind voice echoes. Quietly, but it's there.

_(Baby, if I was gonna pityfuck you, you'd know)._

Nicky shakes the memory away, quite literally. Climbs into bed, where Joe almost immediately senses his presence, because it takes less than a second for him to roll over and wrap his arm around Nicky's waist. He resigns himself to sleep, prays for it to come swiftly, because for the first time in about a year, it provides more solace than Joe's embrace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [psssst, the stolen artwork they're talking about is a REAL thing, and has actually been stolen/missing since 1934.](https://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/kunst/jan_van_eyck_579/genter-altar-die-gerechten-richter-und-die-streiter-cristi.jpg) if there are any art majors reading this, feel free to drag me for any inaccuracies 
> 
> YES Nile is an art nerd in this!
> 
> The brief (and very limited) research I did about art theft and the underground art trade is that apparently, stolen works are traded between mobs as collateral, so thats whats going on between Merrick and the mafia I totally made up for this story. 
> 
> MORE backstory in upcoming chapters! Especially what happened to Nicky's father and Joe's sister Soumaya etc. If this came across very exposition-y, I apologize. 
> 
> none of you asked but Valerio is Luca's character's name in Slam c:
> 
> More soon, hopefully! Thanks for reading this far.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: violence, more than any so far in this fic, a little bit of dark!joe (but trust me he is 100% justified), talk of human trafficking, mention of past abuse, unhealthy coping mechanisms, there is smut in this chapter and while it is by no means dub-con it's of the angsty variety
> 
> also, please keep in mind that I (sadly) have never taken part in a heist, so I have no idea how accurate this is to the underground art trade at all. ONCE AGAIN to the FBI agent who might be reading this: I've never taken part in a heist!!!
> 
> OK ENJOY!!

Andy texts him by Thursday, and her timing can't be worse.

It's Nicky's day off, his first in a while, and Joe had afforded the morning off, promising the group to leave his evenings available should something come up, and something does.

The two of them are lounging on the couch, a Netflix film on neither of them are particularly paying attention to, Nicky's leg hoisted up over Joe's thigh, his fingers absentmindedly rubbing circles across his scalp, like he knows the events of the last few days have been nothing but a torment to Joe.

 _With Nicky_ he manages to text Andy as soon as Nicky pulls out his own phone to go over some work e-mails. Andy texts back lightning quick, a set of emojis in meticulous order that can only mean one thing.

With that, Joe kisses Nicky's temple as he gets up to make the call on their balcony, a small space that they've left unused in recent weeks due colder days. He almost feels the weight of Nicky's gaze on him as he slides the door shut behind him, and finds it hard to ignore when he picks up the phone with a hasty " _What time_ ?"

"21:00. Nile'll text you the coordinates. Book'll pull up from the safe house. You in?"

For the first time all week he manages to not hesitate. "I'm in."

When he gets back to the couch, it's to Nicky's expectant gaze.

"Work," Joe says humorlessly, settling back down on the couch.

"Oh," Nicky says, and his voice is not laced in surprise, and Joe laments the near-routine way the past few days have consisted of Nicky's face falling every time Joe is forced to leave with so little an explanation. It's only for the week, Joe always reminds him, then you'll have me all to yourself, _I promise tesoro_ \- but the words feel empty when he says them, and he thinks he can physically see them enter through one of Nicky's ears and then leave out the other.

"Do you have to go?" Nicky asks.

"Not right now," Joe says, leaning in to brush their noses together, "they can hold down the fort a little longer until I get there."

But it doesn't matter, and the sentiment does nothing, because for the rest of the day an unwanted air of tension presides over their living space, the film providing barely any white noise to fill up the strained silence until Joe slips his jacket on and promises Nicky that he'll be back as soon as he can.

If Nicky knew, though, _god_ if he'd heard Andy say that Copley had a lead on a trafficking ring he'd overheard from one of Merrick's business meetings - Joe briefly entertains the thought of an alternate universe where he'd press the car keys into Joe's palms and a deep kiss to his lips, telling him to _go, go get them._

This extraction was never supposed to happen, was never part of the reason Andy had called Joe back to this life in the first place, but Joe is eternally grateful that it does; he counts about sixteen girls (and that's what most of them they are, _girls_ ) under the hardware shop. They're all terrified, and the black getup that he, Andy, Booker and Nile are clad in certainly doesn't help. Nile reaches out first as always, desperate to provide solace, but it's hard to reassure any of them through the speakers over their faces that distort their voices into deep-pitched echoes.

"Ella," she says to a woman close to her age, "your name's Ella, right? It's okay. You don't have to be afraid anymore. You're gonna see your daughter again. _I promise."_

Joe and Andy deal with with last of the men, the only one remaining of the nine they end up killing above the basement, and it had only been to get him to unlock it, the same song and dance. It's been a year and he should be rusty, but this is nothing but muscle memory for Joe.

"Who do you work for?" he asks the last man standing, who is under the guise that selling himself out will somehow permit Joe to let him walk. "It's Lebedev, isn't it? You can tell me."

The man stares at Joe with wild eyes, breathing shakily through his nose, and nods frantically. "Please," he says. "Please. I will not tell anybody of this. You have my word. I haven't even see your faces."

To that, Joe turns around to look at Andy, as if to say, _never heard that one before._ Then he unmasks himself, blinking at their captive with feigned interest. And then he shoots the scum point blank before slipping his mask back on.

It's always harrowing, this part of the job when they are forced to abandon the victims, but it has to be done; Andy punches the number into the burner phone without even looking at it, and then smashes it immediately after providing an address.

"Help's on the way," Joe says to one of the girls, "you're safe now."

When he turns to get into the van as Booker pulls up around the corner, he is suddenly stopped by a tentative tug on his sleeve. It's so tender a movement, in spite of the violence she has just witnessed, was subject to for days prior.

It's the same girl. "Who are you?" she asks, and Joe distantly wonders the same.

But he leaves the question unanswered, is used to it by now, and gets into the van after Nile.

When they return to the safe house, Joe is broken, beaten, and tired. He's always been unwavering in his convictions, so sure of were his allegiances lie. But he isn't invincible. And right now is testament to that, right now he falls to a discarded mat of the jiu jitsu studio, head in his hands.

From the corner of his eye, he spots Andy throw Booker a look, something like _give us a moment_. The look extends to Nile, and they leave him to Andy in less than a minute.

"I..." he starts, and realizes he's almost at a loss for words. "I don't know if I can do this."

"Joe, I've known you to do much worse," Andy points out.

"What am I supposed to do, Andy?" he demands. "Tell me what I should do. Break a man's neck ten different ways, and then go home and hold Nicky with the same hands?" 

Its obvious Andy chooses her next words carefully. "Those men deserved much worse."

"I - I know - _fuck,_ I know, it's not about that - "

"I thought you'd be used to lying by now."

"No," Joe says, shaking his head, "not like this."

"He can't know about any of this, Joe," Andy says unhelpfully.

"Damn it, Andy, you think I don't know that?" Joe demands, his usually soft voice now dripping in aggravation.

"I know. I know you do," Andy reasons after a deep sigh, circling around to kneel in front of Joe. She forces him to meet her gaze, eyes hardened since the first day Joe had ever set sight on them. "Hey, look at me. _Joe_."

And he does, forces himself to. There's something he doesn't recognize in her eyes.

"You know that all you have to do is say the word, and I'm gone. You'll never have to hear from me, Nile or Book ever again, and his new life you've built for yourself, this life you deserve, we'll never come near it," she says.

Joe appreciates it, he really does, but he can't help but wince at the unfamiliarity of the words, of the implication of a life without this family he has grown to love, of the feeling of nausea that overtakes him also imagining a life without Nicky in it -

"It's just this job, this last job, and then I swear, Joe, I swear to you this will all be over."

Joe sighs, deep and heavy and broken. "Andy..."

"Don't start growing a conscience now. You know why you never stopped. Not after Soumaya. Not even after Lykon."

It's inarguable, what Andy is saying, it’s dripping in facts: the sick way he has allowed this to become a lifestyle, the way he's completely unprepared to face the ramifications of his actions, the way his obstinance has gotten him this far -

And Soumaya, _shit_ he misses her, misses the memory of her, less as a catalyst and more as his sister, sweet-voiced and so full of life. _You're an idealist, Yusuf_ , she'd told him once, _it's either self-destructive or admirable, and if someone tells you it's one or the other, you don't get to disagree._

She would have loved Nicky.

.

Nicky always made sure not to put his nervous habits display, maybe apart from his tendency to chew his lip, something he truly couldn't help and something Joe equally couldn't stand. 

Right now, he is a lexicon of anxiety.

He's out of nails to chew and he's taken to pacing instead of finding a chore around the house to get around to. His e-mail is filled to the brim with unopened attachments, and he can always apologize to Queenie tomorrow and sputter an excuse about his stomach acting up, which wouldn't even be a lie, since he's projectile vomited at least twice tonight.

Inevitably, his mind jumps from Joe to Julian, which is not fair to Joe at all _-_ Julian was nothing but a ghost at this point, barely anything more now than a bad memory. Joe had always been the promise of a clean slate, and even more than that, Nicky was _stupid_ in love with him. 

_Nothing you could have said would have warranted what he did to you,_ Joe had said on their fourth date, when they'd already slept together and Nicky had opened up about Julian,like a kettle that couldn't be silenced. 

And of course Nicky believed him, of course he'd gotten it into himself that he never deserved nor asked for what Julian had done, but a distant voice chastises him, warns him about Joe that _if you fuck this up too..._

The sound of the key turning in their lock is harmonious. Nicky launches himself from the couch, taking quick strides across their living space to meet Joe halfway. 

"How was work?" he asks, voice sweet with honey. 

"Work," Joe huffs out humorlessly, and his eyes - are they red rimmed? He's looks exhausted, and guilt immediately washes over Nicky to even _think_ about piling his anxious energy on top of whatever Joe had to put himself through today. "I'm...I'm so tired, tesoro. I'm - I don't how much more I can take of these people -"

"Oh, _hayati_ ," Nicky says, reaching towards him, "tell me what I can do."

_Tell me what to do so I don't lose you, too._

Joe lifts his hand to tug at Nicky's wrist, to pull him impossibly closer, "nothing, nothing, you don't have to do anything tesoro, you just have to _be here_ \- I need you -"

That's all he needs to hear.

Nicky was never one to weaponize sex, to dangle it in front of Joe's face, but he would be lying to himself if he said he hasn't been withholding. He'd also be lying to deny any kind of bitterness and resentment at Joe's sudden and uncharacteristic shift in focus to his work. He'd always be the supportive type, and he'd done so well masking it, but Joe returning to the gallery to rich assholes he didn't like and co-workers he could barely stand - it made him burn with a jealousy he'd never recognized before. 

And it turned into this, the first time in months that they've gone this long without sex, and Joe has noticed, and Nicky is - _fuck,_ he's satisfied. 

They don't even make it to the bed; Joe ends up opening him up on the couch, Nicky panting into his shoulder as he rocks forward, the friction against Joe's torso so good, _so so good-_

"What?" Nicky gasps, because Joe is groaning something unintelligible, "what's the matter?"

Joe shakes his head, "Nicolo, _please -_ want to - want to take care of you -"

That's how they finally end up on the bed, Nicky crawling up to the bed frame, clinging for dear life, turning around and beckoning Joe to follow. And Joe does like always, and Nicky sees stars when Joe pushes in, and Nicky commends himself for being able to abstain from Joe for this long. 

"Nicky, _please,"_ Joe pleads suddenly, and he pulls back but not all the way and it makes Nicky want to scream, _"_ want to see you --"

Nicky realizes suddenly how much he doesn't want that, because he thinks he tastes tears; his own, to be more specific, but between getting up by the headboard and impaling himself on Joe's cock, he can't remember when he had started crying. 

He grunts something unintelligible to beckon Joe to continue, because he's suddenly stopped, deep inside Nicky, to try and twist his head around for a kiss.

"-- _fuck's sake_ , Joe - _Cristo,_ just do it -" he makes his point known by reaching around to grab at anything and plants his hand on where Joe's hip meets his buttock, pushing him impossibly deeper, "I swear to god if you don't..."

Joe obliges. compensates by peppering kisses to the back of Nicky's neck instead, growling his frustrations the entire time and stroking him to completion, leaving his own orgasm to be little more than an afterthought. But it's not enough, Nicky suddenly realizes, while he's coming _still_ , and before he can stop himself he urges,"go, _go go go Joe please for the love of God you need to move-"_

And Joe does, and it's true bliss, riding his orgasm while Joe chases his own release. He always loves feeling this used up and fucked out. He always viewed sex like this as less of a distraction and more of a declaration, a stark reminder that things with Joe could always be this way if he could just _let them_.

He feels Joe's forehead between his shoulder blade moments later. He whispers something that can't be to Nicky in particular because it's in Arabic, and it's too jumbled for him to piece together anyway, but still - Nicky knows a prayer when he hears one.

.

When Nicky gets to work that morning, it's in a considerably better mood, and it's entirely because of the events of last night. He had woken up deliciously sore, all tension fucked out in a way he already knew was going to be wholly temporary. 

"Morning," Nicky regards, shrugging his jacket off.

"Morning," Queenie greets back, though she keeps her eyes glued to the studio's TV, a flatscreen strung up on the wall that they used for showcase, and that Nicky didn't even know had cable until now.

" _Witnesses say an unmarked black van drove away close to 10:30 PM, but police are unable to corroborate reports due to CCTV footage that appears to be tampered with. Upon further investigation, police discovered Kerry's Hardware store only served as a coverup for an underground trafficking ring, believed in this instance to be in connection with the Lebedev crime family,"_ the reporter on the TV says, standing in front of what looks like a hardware store, or at least what's left of it. 

" _Ella Hendrickson was one of the women found underneath Kerry's Hardware. We are only able to interview her because of the sixteen women, she was the only adult."_

"Cristo," Nicky says, watching in horror as the report cuts to a woman who can't be any younger than twenty-five.

" _There were four of them, and they wore black, all black, and they had these masks,"_ Ella says. " _And these speakers over their mouths, so we couldn't tell if they were men, women or both. One of them, they took my hand and they said it was gonna be okay. That I would_ -" she struggles to get the words out, " _that I would see my daughter again. And that's when I knew we were safe._ "

_"Police suspect this attack was carried out by the same group responsible for the disappearance of suspected crime lord Pietro Balducci of the Balducci crime family and the destruction of Myer's Goods, another trafficking ring masquerading as a goods store, both of which happened a little under one year ago."_

" _What we have here are individuals working outside of the law,_ " the police chief says next, " _their sets of values are completely irrelevant if they are incapable of letting the authorities do their job."_

"Stronzo," Nicky regards.

"Tell me about it," Queenie says, shutting the TV off. Her face is paper white, her pleasant voice unusually high. "It's not like they're asking for a gift basket."

'It's the Guard, isn't it?" Nicky thinks out loud.

Queenie just blinks at him. "What?"

"The Guard," Nicky repeats. "The Old Guard, right? Kind of a self-absorbed name, if you ask me, but to their credit they didn't come up with it." The media did, if Nicky wasn't mistaken, and they'd coined it after a warehouse spilling with heroin had gone up in flames just last year.

 _I think all of us can appreciate the sentiment_ , Nicky recalls someone from a place of privilege saying at a roundtable on the news one night, _but nobody is above the law, and we have professionals to take care of these criminals for a reason. I mean, who do these people think they are, enforcing such a barbaric form of justice? Some kind of - of guardian of old law?_

Queenie looks back at him for a little too long before breaking into a laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, I suppose."

"I mean, nobody would have to work outside of the law if the law wasn't upheld by crooks in the first place."

To that, Queenie looks up from where she's laying out their project for the day. "Do you really believe that?"

"Of course I do," Nicky affirms. "If people are reduced to this...then there's something wrong with the system."

Everyone was entitled to that sentiment; and that was something Nicky firmly believed.

(" _Who are you gonna go to,"_ Julian said one night when Nicky had found himself on the floor next to a pile of smashed plates, having committed the cardinal sin of asking his boyfriend why he had come home so late, " _the police?"_ and that - that had been it for Nicky. There were countless other times he knew he should have left, but something rang sinister about the implications of those words, and the way Julian had said them despite his insistence on never discussing work when they were both at home. Of course he'd apologized almost immediately after, held Nicky in his arms and promised it would never happen again, but it didn't matter this time; Nicky had left that same night with as much as he could carry and hadn't seen Julian by his own means since).

"Sorry," Nicky says, attempting to lighten the mood, "normally it takes me at least two glasses of wine to get this anarchistic."

"You're fine," Queenie laughs it off, and there is a ring to it that Nicky can't quite pin down.

.

Merrick, as it comes to a shock to absolutely none of them, is completely vile in person. He has absolutely no redeeming qualities, which Joe had expected, and he actually had the nerve to speak highly of himself, like he and his Corleone-imitate family were somehow doing this city a favor. 

Copley is ruthlessly efficient, building up a profile for Joe that anyone would believe; and if Merrick suspected anything, none if it would matter, because the job will have been done and Joe would be somebody else completely by then, a way of life he should be used to by now if it weren't for Nicky. 

Nicky, who would dine alone yet againtonight. Joe banishes the thought away quickly, because it's the only way to keep the smile on his face.

He deserves a medal, he decides for himself then, and a big fucking one at that, for his restraint or self-control or whatever you want to call it. For the way he throws his head back and laughs at anything and everything Merrick says, for the way he clasps his hand over Merrick's when they shake hands, instead of leaving two bloody holes where Merrick's eyes should be and whispering Soumaya's name in his ear before ending the pathetic bastard's life.

It takes a pitifully short amount of time for Joe to weasel his way into the most elite of Merrick's dealers, and it's very easy to see why Andy had been adamant about this job in the first place.

Merrick is overly eager, so hellbent on impressing his father that in less than forty-eight hours, Joe (with a select group of other art dealers, none of whom thankfully recognize him) is standing before it, _The Just Judges,_ frankly quite smaller in person then he thought it would be. 

Joe hopes Nile's with Booker on the other end of their feed to see it through his hidden camera, and he knows that if she was she'd be outdoing even herself in the geeking out department. Not that it mattered; she'd see it in person tomorrow night, along with Booker and Andy while Joe exchanged false pleasantries over dinner with Merrick.

"...but my father never had an eye for that sort of thing," Merrick explains, his oh-so-tragic woe-is-me backstory of having a father who would dare underestimate his value to the family business because of an appreciation for stolen art nothing but a laughing stock in Joe's mind. 

The rest of the evening consists of Merrick talking Joe's ear off. It's more enraging than it is annoying, willing himself to agree with Merrick's selfish, faux-altruistic reasons for terrorizing the city. " _We will do such things - what they are yet, I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the Earth_ ," Merrick says, rounding out his manifesto that Joe has heard through Copley so many times before.

"King Lear," Joe regards in a weak attempt to mask how unimpressed he is. 

"You're truly a man of culture," Merrick says, gesturing towards another piece, completely oblivious to Joe's eyes still glued to _The_ _Just Judges._

.

"You'll be joining us tomorrow night, I presume?" Merrick asks over veal that is a little too tough in Joe's opinion.

But it's not why he's continuously forcing himself to stomach it; it's the knowledge that merely two stories below, Andy, Booker and Nile are - so far - _quietly_ attempt to dismantle _The Just Judges_ from where Merrick nonsensically has it hung up on one of his walls like a ridiculous villain in a b-movie. 

"Tomorrow night?" Joe repeats from behind his napkin. He and Nicky, they didn't have concrete plans, but with the theft underway and Joe's growing exhaustion of having to put up with Merrick, he had hoped to surprise Nicky with a little bit more than just opera cake. A thorough apology, ideally - maybe two plane tickets to Malta - 

"It's always business and never pleasure with you, isn't that right, Mr. Jones?" Merrick asks with a toothy grin. 

"I prefer not to mix the two," Joe shrugs.

"Well, you'll have to tomorrow night. I've a promising contact, and Lebedev has agreed to appraise some more pieces. It will certainly be well within both of our interests. I'm sure many works will be in need of your...expert opinion." 

_For fuck's sake._ He can't back out, not now, not at least until tomorrow night because he's only come so far bullshitting his way into Merrick's inner circle. He can't risk leading Merrick to believe that he'd throw all this away for another client, or worse... that he had a life outside of this, because the last thing Joe would ever want would be to somehow drag Nicky into this.

"I can't bring myself to believe any one else would offer you a better assessment," Joe says, sure of himself in spite of the countless lies he has told all evening. 

"Excellent," Merrick regards. "Don't worry about entry, Keane will be able to forward your name to the guest list. Won't you, Keane?"

Joe's eyes follow the direction of where Merrick vaguely gestures towards Keane, a man Joe recognizes from a variety of Merrick's pursuits - doesn't know much about the guy except that he's tall, brooding, and enjoys sulking in corners while Merrick and Joe appraise works of art. Oh, and that he's a fucking lieutenant in the police department, which makes Joe want to burn Merrick and all his assets to the ground even more. 

"Of course," Keane says, but any sentiment is lost in the gruffness of his voice. 

Perhaps it's his imagination - Joe has certainly never put himself in this kind of situation before, and he'd be foolish to deny the hammering of his own heart, but a distant thud makes him think, _fuck, Andy - use your silencer -_

"I have a contact who's authorized to let me into a room with a Degas," he remarks, when Merrick's head tilts towards the sound of the noise. Keane, too, has perked. "Would that be something of interest to you?

.

By the beginning of the new week, Nicky cuts caffeine off completely because he is vibrating out of his skin and entirely of his own accord.

He decides to go to a nearby farmer's market instead, distract himself with the possible meals he could fix up for when Joe returns home later in the day. He'd left earlier that morning after coming home the previous night, pretty much in and out; Nicky had felt the bed dip under his weight, but was too fatigued with anxiety to gravitate towards Joe like he normally did. In the morning Joe was gone, a note on their fridge reading _home for lunch, love you._

When Nicky leaves their home for the market he spots a man in a biker jacket sitting idly across the building, which wouldn't strike him as suspicious if he wasn't high off his own paranoia. He and Joe lived in a relatively safe neighborhood and from widowed old Mrs. Grange whom he'd sometimes leave home-baked cookies for to the single father with twin girls Nicky would babysit from time to time, he was chummy with everybody. So when Nicky returns from the market and the man is _still_ on the bench, he forces himself to shove away his own apprehension.

Nicky knew this would wear off, this temporary bliss, and he _still_ allows himself to be sickeningly shocked at the nausea he finds nestled into his stomach late that afternoon.

Joe's at the gallery, and to his credit, he's been answering Nicky's texts; but to Nicky's distant surprise, it does little to console him. To be at the gallery all afternoon, make it home for a late lunch and then take off again for yet another showcase - it certainly made sense for Joe's profession, but Nicky can't remember the last time Joe had just asked him to swing by the office with his favorite home cooked meal, or for him to drop Joe off on his way to the studio because of Joe's erratic schedule. No, this was too much, and certainly not helpful on top of thoughts of Julian and his father and the strange man sitting outside-

Before he knows it, and against his better judgement he's googling the gala's number, something he's only now just realizing he's never had to do because Joe's never reduced him to this, to calling his workplace. The line picks up fairly quickly, and it's Patrice, and suddenly and stupidly, Nicky's at a loss for words. 

" _Hello_?"

Patrice's insistence is enough to propel him to speak: "Patrice, hey, hi. It's Nicky."

"Nicky, oh hello!" Patrice sounds excited, if not a little confounded. They'd always gotten along, a little past Joe's comfort level (he was never one to mix his personal life with work). "How are you?"

"I'm well, Patrice, thanks, I'm - I'm actually calling because of Joe."

"Oh. Did he have more stuff he needed picked up?"

Nicky thinks he sees spots. "Picked up?"

"Yeah. His office is just about cleared out, but I can put you through to Nielsen or Barnes if -"

"Joe's not there?" Nicky interrupts.

Carefully, and almost like she can tell something's amiss, Patrice says, "N-no. He hasn't been in since Monday. He resigned, I assumed he would have told you."

Nicky thinks he's dropped the phone, because only that can explain the way Patrice's concerned voice, asking if he's still on the line, is suddenly coming from beneath his feet.

No, no this can't be happening again -

He can't have allowed this to happen again -

 _"I'm not cheating on you,"_ Julian says, and Nicky feels the back of his neck in Julian's grip, his territorial thumb pushing Nicky's chin upwards, rendering him unable to break eye contact, _"I'd never do that to you, as much trouble as you are. But you understand why someone would, right?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah next chapter is when I'd say things come full circle c: i'm gonna try and get it out to you guys ASAP because I've finally pinned down just where exactly I want this story to go and I'm excited! hope you all love angsssstttt!
> 
> thank you thank you for all the kind comments and for reading!
> 
> happy thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it! if you don't, have an awesome day anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter: violence, kidnapping, SUPER angst. if you read the last chapter you should know where this picks up
> 
> WHOOOOO okay. a LOT goes down here. this is generally, and to put it crude terms, when shit hits the fan.
> 
> enjoy!! 
> 
> thanks for all your comments!

It's entirely too early for Andy to be popping bottles, but Joe, for the only time he can remember, doesn't move to stop her.

Or Nile, for that matter. 

But not even Booker needs booze to narrate to Joe, in excruciating detail, how he, Andy and Nile had achieved the incredible feat of stealing from right under Merrick's nose (and it was incredible, credit where it's due). The way Merrick lost six men and one painting worth millions, his father's long sought after approval, _and_ the balance of the entire city - and all in one night. 

"You should have been there," Booker ends with.

"I mean, I was," Joe corrects him. "Technically _._ "

"Joe, _come on_ ," Nile whines, and it's entirely unfair, the pouty face she makes that is peak youngest sibling, "celebrate with us. Just this once."

Joe shakes his head through a smile. "I'd rather not come home smelling like booze." 

Nile doesn't push back. If anything, Joe watches her chastise herself silently, acknowledging that Nicky is most likely at home waiting for Joe to come home from what he believes to be a meeting at the gallery. And that's exactly what Nicky was doing, on his day off no less. Joe swallows down the guilt quickly, forces himself to continue with the conversation.

"So," Booker says, finally snatching up a bottle for himself, "what's next for you, little brother?" 

"I mean, in the immediate future?" Joe shrugs. "The gala tonight with Merrick. And then sleep."

Nile balks. "Come on, you're not really going to that shitshow, are you?"

"No, because it wouldn't look completely suspicious for me to ignore his calls the day after his most prized possession has gone missing," Joe teases, elbowing Nile when she rolls her eyes at him. 

"Merrick's probably livid in that mansion of his right now," Andy says, "I mean, boo-fucking-hoo, but his men are probably combing through the city, shaking out the contents of all his contact's pockets, making sure none of them have it. _Truly_ a testament to his incompetence." 

"Hopefully Copley can redirect him on that end," Booker chimes in. "Pin it on another one of his dealers, for all I fucking care."

"That'd be nice," Nile adds. "For them to just eat each other alive. Do our jobs for us."

"Though I do love how that sounds, it'd be a little too good to be true," Booker ruefully observes. "Which is why we need to strike while the iron is hot." 

He shoots Joe a grin that goes ear to ear, and Joe returns to it the best of his ability - he _really_ tries - and he must fail, because in seconds, Booker's smile falters, like he knows something is wrong.

Between stealing the panel, hiding it in the floorboards of Andy's studio, going home to Nicky and now, celebrating in Andy's apartment before planning their next steps - Joe had completely neglected to tell Nile or Booker that this was, effectively, his last venture.

Nile can now tell something's up, because she looks nervously between Joe and Booker, and then to Andy, who quickly cuts through the silence. "Guys, could you...give us a moment?"

Booker nods his approval, and Nile not shortly afterwards, but instead of leaving the room Andy gets up, beckoning Joe to follow her to the tiny balcony space. 

Andy slides the door shut behind her, watching Joe pointedly ignore the Nile and Booker through the glass. "Have you thought about what I said?" Her voice sounds too frail for Joe's liking.

The truth is, he had. He'd gone over it while sitting through dinner with Merrick, clutching onto it like a lifeline to get himself through the evening; the idea of a life beyond all of this, _truly_ living, not just surviving. He wasn't sure how fair that was to Nicky, to put all his happiness on him entirely. But it wasn't as if he could help it. 

"Yes," he says, which is enough of a confirmation for Andy.

Andy smiles sadly. Joe is so unused to the expression, not having seen it cross her face since Lykon. Since Quynh. "So, tell me...what makes him so special?"

Joe considers that. He'd never articulated exactly what did make Nicky so special, at least not out loud, because he never truly believed there were enough words in the three languages between them. And being withholding - it was instinct to him and came so naturally. Talking about Nicky, in any capacity, even though the other man brought nothing but complete joy and hope to his life, just felt wrong. 

He doesn't know what to say. Was it the way Nicky is always so endlessly supportive of him? The way he wakes up every morning to greet Joe like it's the first time they had fallen in bed together, Nicky still unable to wrap his head around any of it having happened? The way Nicky gets up extra early just to make sure Joe has something decent to eat later in the day? The way Joe had expressed in passing that he wanted to leave the gallery eventually to finally start shopping his own work around, and Nicky had told him, completely seriously, that he was willing to give up the comfort of their lifestyle, to move into a shoddy apartment so Joe could at least have a professional art studio? 

He thinks back to that night, one year ago now, his first showcase at the gallery. Some of the works on display had been managed by Nicky and his conservation studio, and Nicky was too busy assessing other works to make conversation with anyone. Joe had been nervous, strangely enough - a feeling almost foreign to him now - and when his eyes fell on Nicky, every last ounce of anxious energy bled out of him. It was enough to just watch this man, truly in his element, seeing paintings not for what they are but for what they could be. It was an incredibly flawed way of thinking, but he couldn't help it - the idea of Nicky seeing the best in him, detached from the complete and utter chaos that brought him here in the first place. It made him feel alive.

And when Nicky had told him he was a restorer, Joe had to bite his inner cheek, desperate not to laugh at the absurd hand he was being dealt. 

They fell into bed together that first night, and even then, Joe knew this was going to be much more than a one night stand. And Nicky knew, too. It's why the next morning, when he'd accidentally slept through a meeting of somewhat importance, _thoroughly_ fucked out from the night before, he couldn't even muster up a single feeling of dread, like he was missing out on anything more important than being right here, at this moment, with this man.

 _You're a magnet for trouble_ , Joe had teased Nicky then, when he'd found himself on the receiving end of a particularly reprimanding e-mail.

"I don't know," he settles on, because he can afford to, because they'll likely never have this conversation again. "When I'm with him, I just feel like...things could be different. Like I'm worth a second shot at this, at life. He feels like breathing."

Andy nods. She's understood the feeling, she'd lived that life, once upon a time. That was the stark difference between her and Joe. Up until last year, Andy had always had Quynh through this. Joe could only afford flings, one night stands and the receiving ends of their honeypot endeavors. 

"What about you?" he asks.

Andy takes a swig of beer, "what about me?"

"Come on, Andy," Joe prods, "don't you see a life outside of this?"

Andy scoffs. "Don't you think we all do?"

It's a non answer, and Joe doesn't want to push, but he can't help it: "Quynh did."

.

Joe feels the last vestiges of melancholy begin to fade as he pulls into the driveway. He rests his head against the wheel for a quick moment, thinking up an evening where he didn't have to bullshit his way through another one of Merrick's functions and instead spoil Nicky in every sense of the word, but the fantasy of it ends up making him sad and indignant, and he doesn't want to bring that into their home. 

By the time he gets the door open, Joe tries to ignore the unease in his gut to find that the lights are out, though the sun has already started to set. Two perfectly stacked eco-friendly bags sit on the kitchen counter, with no Nicky in sight stacking them away, even though it was very much in his character to not leave fresh food just lying around. 

"Nicky -- ?" he calls, shrugging his jacket off to hang it by the rack next to the door. "Tesoro?"

He hears a rumble come from their bedroom, and in moments, Nicky makes his way to their living space, having not made himself known: another strong indication that something was very, very wrong.

He's in clothes that indicate he's been out all day, clad in sweatshirt and jeans, outdoor shoes still on, hair askew like he's just gotten out of bed. And his face...it's devoid of any color, of any feeling. It doesn't look like Nicolo at all.

"Where have you been all week?" he asks without so much as a greeting.

Joe pales. "What do you mean?" he insists. "I've been at work, tesoro."

"At work?" Nicky says, and his voice rings accusatory. Which, to Joe's growing chagrin, it has every right to be. "At the gallery?" 

"Yes," Joe says, sensing dread make its way up his spine. 

"So Patrice was lying to me, then?"

 _Shit. Shit shit shit._ "Nicky," Joe says slowly, bracing himself for what he now knows will be an argument, "what are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about?" Nicky echoes fiercely. "I'm talking about how I called the gallery to ask where you were, and they told me they haven't seen you since Monday."

Joe tries to brace himself and fails. He'd always known this conversation was going to be a possibility and ignored it, so deadset on making sure it never would actually materialize outside of his head. " _Tesoro--"_

"No," Nicky interrupts, "don't 'tesoro' me. No more bullshit games, Joe. All cards on the table." Nicky's eyes are impossibly wide and brighter than Joe can ever remember them being. "Tell me what's going on."

Joe just stares at him, at this man he is inexplicably and almost dangerously in love with, who he is most certain he would die for, and wonders how he can possibly answer without losing him.

"Who's Andy?" Nicky asks suddenly, shaking.

Joe doesn't immediately register. All this time he'd gone the extra mile making sure Nicky would never discover so much as a name of anybody involved in his past, except Soumaya, who was far too present and overpowering in his mind to hide from anybody, even from even Nicky. 

"How do you know that name?" he ends up asking, which is the wrong thing to say.

"I don't know, Joe," Nicky says, "maybe because we live together and _Andy_ is always blowing up your phone and _Andy_ always warrants a call in another room and _Andy_ is probably who's got you coming home late all the fucking time -"

"It's not like that," Joe pleads, knowing there are no possible words he can say that will offer up enough of an explanation.

"It's not?" Nicky demands. "I don't know, Joe. I'm having trouble believing you." 

"She's--" 

And what exactly was Joe going to say? The classic "just an old friend"? Somehow, that seemed exponentially worse than _oh_ , _just somebody I committed grand larceny with last night._ And Joe, he wants to tell Nicky, he really hates leaving him in the dark like this, and he's so sure it will eat away at his conscience until he's in the ground --

But Andy’s words echo is his head, clear and true: Nicky _can't_ know about any of this. And it's not to protect Joe, it's _precisely_ to protect Nicky. Joe has been doing this for eleven years. All those bullshit Hollywood movies were the interchangeable white man hides his identity, because any amalgamation of his separate lives meant putting his loved ones in danger? They were all, unfortunately, _very_ right.

"She's someone from a life I've left behind," he says before he can't stop himself. Pushes past the thought of how _stupid_ that sounds, tries to remind himself that it's the most honest answer he can muster, the most truthful thing he's told Nicky all week.

Nicky's eyes narrow. "What? Like an ex-girlfriend?"

"No," Joe says immediately, though it does little to prove his point, the erratic, beat-around-the-bush way he is answering Nicky's questions. "No, we - we were never like that --"

"Then _who_ is she, Joe?" Nicky demands. "I'm not one of your clients, you know. You can't bullshit me here. Tell me who she is or I will do what I've been doing all goddamn week, which has been assuming the worst."

Joe feel his heart sink. There is no possible way for him to talk his way around this, to provide an explanation satisfying enough for Nicky without condemning him to a life Joe never wanted for himself in the first place, let alone for the love of his life.

He can't. 

"She's..." he begins again, and his heart shatters a million different ways to find that Nicky's crying now, and it's just as horrible as the first time Joe had seen him break down like this talking about _Julian_ of all fucking people, and how he had taken advantage of Nicky's kindness and support, and it makes Joe sick that he can even be compared, in any capacity, to that _monster_ in Nicky's mind.

"Listen to me, Nicolo," he says instead, "my life, before I met you...it's to both our advantages if you didn't know about any of it. And I say this for you, _only_ for you, Nicolo, because I love you so much - more than I ever thought I was capable of, and the way you love me...it's certainly not in a way I deserve. I just...I just need you to know that I would _never_ do anything to dishonor your love for me. I would never lie with anyone else, not when you're the only thing that makes my life worth living. You just have to trust me -"

_Trust me like you did when I lied about resigning from work, like you did when I've been lying about where I've been all week, like you did at that gala, one year ago now, when I told you my name was Joseph Jones..._

He reaches out, but Nicky actively flinches away, _actually takes a step back_ , and Joe goes cold.

"Get out," Nicky hisses, and it doesn't sound like Nicky, so Joe doesn't immediately react, doesn't know how to.

"What?" This can't be happening. Not before the gala, not _at all,_ not when Nicky was his lifeline -

"Get out," Nicky repeats, motioning forward. "Get out - you need to leave, Joe -"

"Nicolo, _please -"_

"Don't you have a 'gala' tonight?" Nicky returns, and though the sentiment is cruel, his voice is laced in utter sadness, betrayal, and the way he says gala goes through Joe's heart.

"Nicky, I love you. Please don't do this."

Nicky continues moving forward, past Joe, opening their door for him. 

Joe looks at the hallway outside their home, so familiar to him, like it's completely alien to him, like he's never seen it before, like actually stepping outside would mean certain death. "Nicky-"

" _Get out_ ," Nicky says once more, staring at the floor beneath them, eyes wild with fury, voice barely discernible, masked in tremors. 

But Joe - he's certainly not undeserving of this. And he won't, he _can't_ go against what Nicky wants, because Nicky is all he cares about right now, so despite himself, he feels his feet start to move. "Nicky," he says, blinking through tears, "where will I go? Where will I go, without you?"

"Andy," Nicky says, and it's the last thing Joe hears before the door swings shut.

.

For Nicky, the rest of the evening proceeds as a blur that he refuses to partake in. He considers pills, just to force himself to sleep, but that would require something a little stronger than the Benadryl in the bathroom and also a trip to the pharmacy down the street. Crying himself to sleep seemed like the better option.

But his thoughts force him awake, staring at the ceiling almost like it held the answers. 

He can't bring himself to even think up what tomorrow could possibly bring about. Joe, on his doorstep, finally offering up an explanation satisfying enough for the both of them, hard evidence that Julian was wrong about everything - that he hadn't made it easy for Joe to go behind his back and lie, _blatantly,_ for Nicky to ignore it anyway because bringing it up all the time is what used to get him in trouble in the first place --

But what had done it for Joe?

Nicky had done anything and everything to avoid a repeat. Not that he'd ever had to entertain a single thought of Joe treating him anywhere close to the way Julian did, but really - what were his deciding factors? Were they similar to Julian's? To his father's, who, for some reason, he's beginning to think hadn't simply dropped off the face of the Earth?

 _No,_ Nicky chastises himself, _don't go there._

_It's why Julian went behind my back, and it's probably why Joe did too._

It's inevitable that Joe will be back, Nicky concedes, and wonders if it will be tomorrow after all, or just after the gala. And when he does come back, what will come of it? A future without him? Despite the events of the last hour, the thought of it makes Nicky sick.

Three knocks force him out of his musings. They're loud, and if was Joe (like Nicky distantly hoped), he'd certainly have his keys on him - except he'd respect Nicky's boundaries entirely, and not force an apology on Nicky until he was ready to listen. Still, it was going on just under forty-five minutes, and the gala didn't even start until about an hour later - had Joe finally come to his senses? 

The knocks return again, erratic, and Nicky leaps off the couch, roughly swiping away the remnants of tears from his eyes. "Joe, I swear --" he begins as he opens the door, but quickly stops himself.

It's the man from before, the one clad in the biker jacket, and there's someone else with him. Another man, taller than the two of them, with blonde hair that looks a little too bleached.

Nicky can't explain why, but suddenly, he feels small.

"Yes?" he asks, willing his voice not to waver, but it's near impossible. His earlier instincts about the man were right, and it's paralyzing him with fear. 

"Nicolo Genova?" asks Biker Jacket.

Nicky doesn't answer. Not much adds up about any of this, and between Joe's disappearances and strange men showing up at their home, he knows none of this can be good. But these men, exceptionally larger than him, he won't be able to push past. So instead he slams the door forward, lightning quick, leaning his entire body against it in an attempt to lock himself in and call for help.

" _Ow - son of a bitch - "_ exclaims Biker Jacket from where Nicky had trapped his hand between the door and its frame. 

It's no use. They successfully force themselves in, barely managing to keep the door hinged, knocking Nicky onto his back and leaving him to scramble towards the living space. Biker Jacket, looking _throughly_ pissed off about his hand, advances on Nicky while Blondie shuts the door behind them, trapping him.

Nicky barely makes it on his feet when Biker Jacket tackles him, but it's right by the lounge table, so Nicky grabs a half-full mug of lukewarm chamomile and smashes it over his assailant's face. The force is enough to knock him to his side, blinking tea out of his eyes, but Blondie takes the chance to grab Nicky's pants leg and send him hurdling towards the floor.

"Get over here," demands Blondie, dragging him backwards by his ankle. Nicky scrambles for purchase, but there is nothing but slippery plywood beneath them, and he is forced into Blondie's grip. 

Truly out of options, Nicky brings his arms up in attack, but it does little with Blondie's legs on either side of him, trapping him. " _Help!"_ he ends up screaming, praying at least one neighbor can hear the commotion, " _help! Somebody help me, please-"_

" _Shit,"_ hisses Blondie, trapping Nicky's wrists on either side of his head with enough strength to effectively pin him. It does little to stop Nicky from screaming, quite literally emptying his lungs, which turns out to be the wrong idea entirely - Biker jacket reappears in his line of vision, upside down from where Nicky is pinned, and presses a cloth against his face.

It smells like what he assumes is chloroform. Which means he's definitely being kidnapped.

 _"Joe,"_ he thinks he says before blacking out. 

.

Humorlessly, Nicky thinks that if his life were a film, it would inexplicably begin with him in the trunk and an opening narration of, " _yep, that's me._ _you're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation."_

Nicky loses track of how long he has been like this, desperate for air, even more now than answers. The trunk is thick with heat, and in his disorientation, he hadn't made sense of the bag they'd thrown over his head. He focuses on counting his breaths to pass the time, to keep himself from falling into a panic attack that will inevitably lead to an asthma attack that will inevitably lead to him dying, to Joe likely never finding out what's happened.

 _Joe,_ he forces himself to remember, _Joe will find me._

_It'll only be a slightly better situation by then, because then I'll have to confront the love of my life pretty much being a ghost to me this whole time._

_But cross that bridge when we come to it._

It just makes sense. Joe's erratic behavior, the way he refuses to divulge Nicky in his past just had to be connected with him being abducted out of their apartment. It was, strangely enough, the only thing that made sense to him now.

Suddenly, the car slows, and Nicky is left to assume that it is pulling up. The trunk opens, and Nicky sees fragments of light through the bag they'd covered his head in, and when they pull at his ankle to wrestle him out of the trunk, he can't stop himself; he kicks like hell in every direction, and from the distant thuds and the pained gasps, he thinks he's got a few.

"God _damn it,_ will you _stop --"_

"Fiesty son of a bitch, isn't he?"

"You should have seen what he did to Ray's face." 

He's manhandled into a chair, his arms forced behind it's back, and he can hear himself hyperventilating, _still_. He needs this bag off his head. Needs to see faces apart from Blondie and Biker Jacket to try and start to piece together why this is happening to him.

Almost as if on cue, the bag comes off, and he is blinded by fluorescent lights. When his vision readjusts, he finds himself in an open and airy space, walls stretching around him covered in works of art. But it's not the Caravaggio that he's pretty sure is stolen that captures his attention - it's the figure who pushes through the men who had tied him to the chair, who, as he gets closer, Nicky starts to feel like he's falling through the floor because it's somehow, _impossibly --_

" _Julian?"_ Nicky manages around the wad of cloth they had stuffed into his mouth.

" _Christ_ , Keane," one of them laughs from his left, "leave some for the rest of us."

And between being chloroformed in his own apartment and waking up in a trunk and then what looks like a lair in a Bond film, _this_ has to be where Nicky calls bullshit. 

But, no, _this is happening_ , and by the looks of it, Julian is struggling to come to terms with it too. He stares at Nicky, long and hard, and then his gaze turns downcast. Even through the thoughts racing in his mind and his heart hammering through his chest, Nicky wills the wheels to turn in his brain. The constant calls, the working late, the erratic way he'd cancel on their dates. It makes sense, and he's only left wishing it didn't have to.

Somebody comes up from behind Julian, someone Nicky thinks he recognizes from news reports, maybe. A man who looked only slight younger than Nicky, dressed to the nines, not a single hair out of place given the brutality of the situation.

"Nicolo Genova," the man regards like they're supposed to know each other. He looks Nicky up and down. "You're certainly your father's son."

Even if Nicky could speak, he wouldn't even know what to say. Between finding out Joe's been lying to him for god knows how long, to his ex-boyfriend being in a literal mob, to his fucking papà being brought into the mix - _Cristo,_ what was it with the men in his life and being goddamn criminals --

"My name is Steven Merrick. I'm sure you've heard my name before. Can we at least agree on that?"

For what it's worth, Nicky _has_ , and it's kind of impossible not to. Be it the news or just whispers in the streets, Nicky was casually aware of the most powerful crime family in the city. But that contributed very little in his pursuit of piecing together just what the _fuck_ was going on.

"I have other matters to attend to this evening, so I'll make this easier on the both of us. Where is it?" Merrick leans forward to drag the gag out of his mouth, leaving it to hang around his throat. 

Nicky just shakes his head. No, he still can't believe this is happening. "I - I don't -"

Merrick nods at someone Nicky can't see, and suddenly he feels something pressing against temple, something he can only assume is the end of a gun. It's cold.

"I know you have it," Merrick continues.

"Please," Nicky says. His eyes flicker to Julian, who is watching the exchange with a look that Nicky distantly recognizes. He'll recognize it for the rest of his life - the almost immediate shame in his eyes he'd get after treating Nicky like a little more than a piece of meat. It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now. Nicky refuses to acknowledge him, let alone beg for his help. "Please," he says again to Merrick, "I - I d-don't know what you're t-talking about."

Merrick chuckles at that. "Funny. That's exactly what your father said."

And Nicky, he - he is at a complete loss for words. He's angry, completely beside himself for being left to to piece any kind of connection of papà and how that could possibly tie into any of this, into an ex-boyfriend standing idly by as a literal mob boss threatened his life, into Joe and whatever possible shit he's into, when everybody in his life up until this point had failed to tell him anything.

"I haven't seen my father in thirteen years," he says, because it's the truth. It was always easier to tell people Valerio Genova was dead because _missing_ reminded Nicky of the possibility that he had simply walked out on him without an explanation. But as a child it never made sense, and anything was frankly easier than confronting an alternative where papà had been in what Nicky can only assume is the goddamn mafia. "Please," he continues, and he's crying now, "whatever - whatever you're talking about it, I - I - I swear, I don't know _anything..."_

He finally looks to Julian then, and it's enough to make him sick, but it's useless at this point to pretend they don't have history. No, Nicky spent two years of his life with this man, two years that have now inexplicably lead to _this_ , and his stomach turns thinking about the earlier days when they were very much in love, exchanging stories, Nicky inescapably telling him of the night his father had simply left, never to come back. How his mother had spun tales about it that made no kind of sense, how it led to a rift between the two of them, how it was an essential bedrock of Nicky's trust issues. Julian, of all fucking people, would know Nicky was telling the truth.

But Julian, of everybody else in the room, says nothing.

Nicky closes his eyes, tries to block his senses from feeling the cold end of the gun, tries to shove away his own anticipation, knowing it will only make things worse.

But the gun withdraws, but for some reason, relief doesn't wash over him.

"You want to know what I think?" Merrick inquires, and no, Nicky really doesn't want to. He wants to grab an Uber, take a shower - no, a bath - and fall asleep in Joe's arms. Joe, who Nicky is so sure now is more involved in this than he wants to believe. It adds to his growing fury, to this mountain grief; being forced to compare Joe to Julian in any capacity. This was never supposed to happen.

It was always going to be a rhetorical question, but that doesn't stop one of the men from shoving the gag back in between his teeth.

Merrick turns to Nicky, an unfamiliar glint in his eye. "I think there's some fun to be had here."

He fishes his phone out of his pocket, and Nicky, who is still trying his best to register his situation, hears the distant shutter of a phone camera and blinks a bright flash out of his eyes.

.

It certainly went without saying, but of the evenings spent playing Merrick like an absolute fiddle, Joe can't remember having ever exerted this much energy into acting like everything was a-okay.

To show up to the gala at all and act like he hadn't spent the last two hours crying Alice in Wonderland style proved especially challenging. And Booker, _thank god for that man_ , he'd lent Joe his own three piece, no questions asked about why he'd shown up on his doorstep shy of a jacket despite the fact that it was definitely sweater weather, and why he didn't have access to his own. Joe found it in himself to hold off on an explanation, instead distracting himself with thoughts of returning to their apartment after all this is over, heart on his sleeve. He'll go on his knees if he has to, beg absolute forgiveness for all the neighbors to hear, offer up an explanation to Nicky that will be nothing else but the truth. 

Because Joe decides, then and there, at the fucking gala no less, that Nicky _will_ know. That he absolutely deserves to, even if it means losing him forever.

"...and what do you suppose of this?" Merrick implores. 

They're standing before a painting, Baroque if Joe isn't mistaken, of Iphigenia being led to her death.

"Remarkable," Joe says, swirling the champagne in the ridiculously thin glass it's bubbling in, leaning in to squint at a price tag, "and certainly undervalued."

Merrick offers him up a soft chuckle. "I know I asked you here for a reason. I must ask, Mr. Jones, if you're aware of the story of Iphigenia."

Joe bites back the urge to roll his eyes. "The long and short of it, Mr. Merrick. Forgive me, but after a while, Greek tragedies tend to blur into one for me."

"You're not wrong," Merrick observes. "Would it be a Greek tragedy if there wasn't a death that could be avoided entirely?"

"I suppose not," Joe offers.

"Right again, Mr. Jones. Iphigenia's is an interesting case. Her father angers the goddess Artemis en route to the Trojan war, and the only way to appease her is through a human sacrifice. Iphigenia, no less. So you're right; that's the long and short of it. But there exists another ending that nobody can agree on, one of Iphigenia escaping certain death. If this ending exists, nobody can seem to agree on it. And so, don't you suppose it's up to us to choose the ending we prefer?"

"Of course," Joe returns, forcing himself to pay attention. 

"And which ending would that be for you, Mr. Jones?"

Joe forces himself to smile. "Well, Mr. Merrick, who can resist a Greek tragedy?"

Merrick looks needlessly satisfied with his answer. Then he pulls out his phone, tapping along the screen. "I've another piece in need of opinion."

Joe feels a buzz in his back pocket, and immediately tenses. This isn't Merrick's style. Begrudgingly, he fishes his phone out to see that it's a text message with an attachment, a photograph that he opens without thinking twice, and it's --

It's Nicky. He's in a chair, clearly bound and gagged, completely roughed up, the terror in his eyes enough to send a wave of utter horror through him, making itself at home in the very marrow of Joe’s bones.

Joe feels the glass slip out of his hand, but doesn't register it until he feels the impact of the glass shattering. _No. Nononono this can't be happening -_ he had done everything and anything to keep this from happening-

"Whoa there," Merrick says, his hands steadying Joe in a clear mockery of the situation. "Someone can't hold his liquor," he laughs off to nervous onlookers, who quickly return to their browsing. 

Joe stares up from his phone, into Merrick's eyes, knowing in a way that makes him feels bare, stripped naked, subject to Merrick's mercy. But, _obviously_ , nowhere near the way Nicky is right now.

"Suppose you're wishing you could change your answer right about now, hm?" Merrick remarks. 

Joe licks his cracked lips, forcing himself to speak, "where is he?"

"Now why would I tell you that?" Merrick chastises. "That's part of the fun."

"Please," Joe says, voice dangerously low. Tears he'd dried mere moments before entering the gallery begin to form again. "Please - please listen to me --"

"I think I'm just about done listening to you, Mr. Jones," Merrick says maliciously. "Now. I believe you have something that belongs to me. Which works out perfectly for the both of us, because I have something that belongs to you." 

Joe breathes shakily out of nose. It was already hard to pay attention to anything Merrick was saying, his heart still in pieces from his earlier argument with Nicky, but this - nothing could compare. He's never known fear like this. He's terrified. He's truly, deeply, thoroughly, _terrified_.

"Say it," Merrick more or less commands.

Joe looks up, doesn't completely register.

"Say it," Merrick repeats, "tell me what you stole from me. _From my family."_

There is no true use denying it now. Not when Nicky's life depended on it. He swallows, " _The Just Judges."_

"Now, was that so hard?" Merrick asks.

Joe shakes his head, wills himself to, petrified of what could happen to Nicky if he wasn't to comply, even slightly. 

"I'll tell you this much," Merrick continues conversationally, watching Joe try, and pretty much fail to keep his composure. "It was incredibly well-informed of Mr. Genova to get you to do his bidding. I can't imagine how long he must have been lying in wait, twiddling his thumbs until it was the perfect time to strike, exacting his revenge on my family for what we did to his father." 

His _father_? 

Joe barely knew anything about Nicky's father besides the fact that he died thirteen years ago. Whatever Merrick believed seemed to be on shit intel. 

"Listen to me," Joe interjects, ignoring the righteous smirk he'd much rather strike off Merrick's face, "this has nothing to do with him. This was - this was all me. Please. Please, don't hurt him. Let him go. It's me, I - _I'm_ the one you want." 

A strange look passes over Merrick's face. Was it incredulity? Was it admiration? "You have to understand why I can't believe you, Mr. Jones." 

Joe doesn't answer. He's completely lost, drowning in a sea of uncertainty, incredibly unfamiliar to him, and almost cruel; that he had calculated each and every step, took care to make sure Nicky would never be at the center of this, and somehow he _still_ was. 

"We'll discuss it over dinner," Merrick says casually. "Tomorrow night, our usual time. It goes without saying, but bring the painting. I'm sure we can work out a fair trade."

With that, Merrick leaves, ungluing Joe from his spot, and he stumbles out of the gala, towards his car, towards the only other people who could help him at this point, _towards his family._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those of you confused about nicky's dad i promise next chapter will explain everything about that!!
> 
> and to those of you who called that julian = keane KUDOS!!!!  
> *kim kardashian voice* i'm like dropping hints that julian is keane  
> me in this chapter: julian is keane
> 
> yeah, i'm incapable of slowing down in terms of angst lololol.
> 
> THANKS FOR READING, and for all your comments!!
> 
> new chapter hopefully soon!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter: talk of past abuse, moreso than in previous chapters, slight violence
> 
> thanks for the kind words of last chapter!!! I'm glad you guys are enjoying this so far. Unfortunately this chapter is mostly angst, but I'm definitely prepared to end this on a hopeful note, so please look forward to happier days :)))
> 
> okay that's all for now, enjoy!!

When Joe reaches Andy's door he is a certifiable mess. He wonders how many people he must have actively frightened, frantic as he is, ditching the shitty elevator of Andy's shabby apartment building completely to climb up the stairs instead, sweat drenching Booker's perfect three piece despite the crisp, cold air.

He bangs on Andy's door hard enough that he knows he has to offer up an apology later.

Andy opens up the door in an overlarge t-shirt that looks a little bit like something Quynh would own, looking very sleep deprived. "Joe -- what the fuck, do you even know what time it is -"

"They have him," Joe says immediately, and Andy pales.

"Who has him?" she asks, though he already has a feeling she may know, "what are you talking about?"

"Ni - _Nicky_ \--" he can barely form the words but it doesn't matter to Andy; she pulls him in briskly, shutting the door behind them.

Joe makes a beeline for the kitchen sink and unceremoniously throws up. Between the fight with Nicky just earlier that day, the gala, the photograph Merrick had sent him, the knowledge that somewhere Nicky was alone and terrified and confused - that Merrick hadn't believed him when he'd said the painting was on him entirely and that Nicky had nothing to do with this -- that Nicky didn't have anything to do with this at all, and they wouldn't believe him, and they'd likely hurt him for answers, Joe knows how these groups work --

He pulls up for breath, feels Andy's hand on his back, beckoning him to start talking.

"Joe," she says, and her voice sounds like an echo, "tell me what happened."

Joe wills himself to, but realizes he can't do it on his feet, so he slumps down onto the kitchen floor to lean against the cupboards, entirely too hard, because Andy goes with him to help cushion the fall. "Merrick has Nicky."

Andy seizes. "How do you know?"

"At the gala," he says, waving his hand uselessly. "He showed me. _Fuck_ , Andy, _I fucked up--"_

"Joe, _hey_ ," Andy says, and she's clutching at him now, forcing him to look up into her eyes, "no you didn't. We'll fix this, okay? I promise you. We're gonna, gonna fix this --"

He knows Andy was always a woman of her word, knows she didn't promise things unless she absolutely meant it, but Joe's mind flickers to Soumaya - to Lykon - and he thinks he feels more bile coming up his throat.

"He wants the painting," Joe says between shallows breaths. "Thinks - thinks Nicky has it, for some reason -"

And at that, Andy's grip goes loose. "What?"

"I don't know," Joe admits, "d-don't...don't know why he would, but I told him that I had it on me, to let Nicky go, and he said he wouldn't, said something about Nicky and his dad -"

"His dad?" Andy interrupts, and she looks well and truly confused now, as lost as Joe feels. "Who the hell is he?" 

For a minute, Joe doesn't know if she's talking about Nicky or his father, or maybe the both of them. It crossed Joe's mind once or twice, but where Nicky never pushed about Soumaya, Joe never probed about Nicky's father past their first date, when Nicky had only mentioned that he'd died thirteen years ago.

It makes him sick now, entirely, that he can't even seem to remember the man's name.

"I don't know," Joe says, ashamed entirely, even though it's Andy, even though she's overwhelmingly familiar with this kind of life. "They have him, Andy...they said I had till tomorrow night to give them back the painting --"

Andy gets up at that, crosses her living space to a pick up a pair of spare trousers off the floor, and starts pulling them up over her legs while fishing her phone out of its back pocket at the same time. "This is what we're gonna do," she tells Joe, "we're gonna meet Book and Nile at the warehouse, and we're gonna make a stopover at your place, packing up as much of your shit as we can because we're getting your boy back Joe, _I promise,_ and we're gonna get you out of the country -" she cuts herself off to speak into the phone, " _Book?_ I don't care that you're sleeping, get to the safe house, and make sure you call up Nile. I'll text you the details. Listen, I need you to get a head start on a background search. It's Nicky," she looks towards Joe expectantly, "uh, Nicky..." 

"Nicolo," Joe corrects, looking up from where he's got his head in his hands, "Nicolo Genova." 

.

When they get to the apartment, Joe's heart drops immediately when he realizes he doesn't even need his key to get the door open. He thinks he feels Andy steady him when they actually step in, and he takes a minute to observe the mess; the crumpled rug, the dent in the wall next to the doorframe, cold tea pooling around the shattered remnants of his favorite mug. 

The shame creeps up on him, then. How he'd let this happen. How he'd brought this into their home.

Mindlessly, he makes his way to their bedroom, pulling out a duffle bag from where it's nestled under their bed, and begins packing up Nicky's things, his own needs an afterthought. When the bag's moderately full of spare clothes and some of their toiletries, Joe exits to the living room, where he sets the bag down for a minute. In full view of Andy, he pops open a loose floorboard to bring out a small, metallic box, where he unceremoniously pulls out two guns, safety off. _Who knows what other kind of shit Merrick is going to try to pull,_ he reasons with himself as he hands one of the guns to Andy, _he'd gone far enough to find out where I live. To terrorize Nicky and to take him away from me --_

"Christ, Joe," Andy whispers, but she takes the gun regardless.

Joe doesn't respond, just double checks the safety before shoving the gun down his waistband before suddenly, impossibly, three loud knocks on the front door reverberate around the apartment.

Joe looks to Andy, eyes wild. She says nothing, only lifts her gun, barrel pointing towards the door. Joe follows, pulls his gun out again entirely, makes his way slowly towards the door, one hand on the trigger, the other outstretched to unlock the handle.

The knocks ring out again, and Joe swings the door open entirely before extending his aim at --

 _Shit,_ it can't be, not when very little already made any kind of sense, but somehow --

" _Quynh?"_ he lowers the gun, blinking back in disbelief.

"Holy _fuck_ ," exclaims Quynh, hands in the air, eyes ablaze. She's wrapped in deep red coat, hair longer than the last time Joe remembers, and despite the terror in her eyes, she looks...good. Like the last year has been kind to her. "What the _fuck_ , _Joe_?" 

Despite quite literally having a gun pointed in her face, she offers him that warm smile he's missed so much, but it seems to fade almost immediately when she truly takes in the sight of him. "You look like shit." Without warning, she makes her way into the apartment, and then her eyes settle on Andy, who has also lowered her gun. "Andy," she regards.

"Quynh," Andy returns, and in spite of the circumstances, Joe senses something distantly warm in her voice. Before she can help it, she moves towards Quynh, body naturally gravitating towards her like always. "I - I don't understand - what are you doing here?"

Quynh doesn't answer immediately. Instead, her eyes travel from Andy, back to Joe, to the gun in Joe's hands, to the duffle bag on the floor, and back to Andy. "Okay," she says to Joe, "you're gonna have to walk me through what the fuck is going on."

"You first," Joe says, closing the door behind him, “how do you know where I live?”

Quynh swallows, downturning her gaze for a split second before meeting Joe's eyes. "I'm actually here for Nicky."

 _Okay_ , Joe thinks to himself, _now I'm the one in need of an explanation._ He feels his heart drop as he asks, "how do you know Nicky?"

Quynh bites the inside of her cheek. "From work."

Joe wonders how long he just standing there, staring at her, willing the wheels to turn his brain. "What - ? I don't..." then it hits him. " _You're_ Queenie?" Joe balks.

"Ta-da," Quynh says with a shrug and an air of guilt. "I know," she adds, her eyes settle on Andy, and they exchange a look known only to them, "creative."

"But, I mean," Joe sputters, the events of the evening rendering him almost completely incoherent, "how --"

"He's one of best, if not _the_ best restorer in town," Quynh reasons. "He applied, and I...I couldn't pass up on him. I swear to you, Joe, I - I didn't know anything about the two of you. And when it came up naturally, and he showed me pictures, I was beyond terrified, but I didn't want to rain on his parade, so I just...I don't know. Kept my distance."

Joe nods ruefully, understanding and strangely appreciating her for it. Lykon's death hadn't been easy on any of them, but it had taken it's toll on Quynh, and he couldn't blame her, none of them could, not even Andy. They were siblings _entirely_ ; it didn't matter if it was by blood. They'd entered the team together, and they'd been together until Lykon took his final breath in Quynh's lap, when shitty intel led to a fatal shootout. Quynh had never been the same since then, returning to the safehouse beaten and bloody and defeated in a way Joe had never seen her. Nothing anyone could say helped, and all of Andy's promises rang empty and hollow. 

Quynh was the first to leave. She'd always been transparent, more straight forward than Andy at times, and she'd told them she was done, that the city barely deserved any of them anymore, that she wanted a fresh start, a clean slate. None of them had intended to follow suit, not even Andy, which led to rows and the near unnatural sight of Andy in tears. Quynh had been the glue holding the team together and continues to be. Joe distantly wonders if any of this would have happened at all, had she shown up at the safehouse a week ago.

"Wait, so if you're his boss, then why are you even here?" Andy asks bluntly.

Quynh shrugs, almost at a loss for words. "He's my friend," she says, and Joe searches her eyes and sees the truth. Imagines all the times Nicky would come home from work, even on the most exhausting days, with a smile on his face - how he'd always stop by their favorite bagel place - how he always prefaced every story about Queenie with, _I swear, Joe, you two need to meet._ And they never did, never got around to it because Quynh had been doing just that, keeping her distance. 

"He's been acting a little off lately," Quynh continues explaining, and Joe feels pangs of guilt at that. "Hasn't been answering my e-mails or my calls. And then today, he just didn't show up at work, and I don't know...I felt like something was wrong." 

Joe and Andy exchange a look.

"What?" Quynh prods, a little more worried now. _"Shit._ What is it?"

Quynh had always said she’d come back to them when she was ready, and that time was now, wether she liked it or not.

As Joe wills himself not to break down all over again, Andy explains for him, "Merrick has him."

" _What_?" Quynh demands. "What - how - what kind of _shit_ did you get him into?"

Joe can't even find it in himself to offer up a defense, because - in spite of the multiple factors that have lead to this night - he was still very much at fault.

"We'll explain on the way to the safehouse," Andy says in place on actual explanation, and she leads the way out of the apartment.

.

They keep him tied down. Nicky collects why; if Merrick seems to believe he's some criminal mastermind hellbent on avenging his father ( _whatever that meant_ ), then that would mean he's definitely crafty, and they couldn't risk that.

He just doesn't seem to understand why they're still keeping him alive. They've barely touched him, asked him any more questions about a stolen painting they're so sure he knows about, and that's whats chilling him to the bone. Merrick has something planned. What exactly, he's not sure, but even in his anger, there's no use denying it doesn't involve Joe, and that Nicky isn't terrified for what that could mean for him.

His back is strained and he's entirely too anxious to even consider falling asleep, despite the creeping exhaustion. Once Merrick clears out to tend to whatever errands a crime lord needs to complete in the day (or night, Nicky's lost track of the time entirely), Julian comes up from seemingly nowhere, and Nicky immediately tenses.

There's no one here but the two of them. It's entirely fucked up that it's come to this, but Nicky would rather have any one of these goons as his company instead of Julian.

If Julian notices, he doesn't seem to care. He crosses the room to kneel in front of Nicky so that they are at eye level. He takes Nicky in for a quiet moment, ignoring the way Nicky pulls away from him. Then he pulls the gag down, and Nicky does not hesitate, immediately swooping down upon the chance to spit, _hardly,_ in his face. 

Julian blinks back, perhaps not in disbelief but in frustration, wiping off the spit as he says, " Nicky --"

"Fuck you," Nicky interrupts, reiterating his point weakly if he was being honest with himself, but he didn't care. It was truly, deeply, _viscerally_ how he felt about Julian at the moment, how he felt about him for the last couple of years, and it was unfair, downright cruel, that all he could do was shake with his fury, tied down as he was. 

"You were always very short sighted," Julian remarks, as if that could be a possible explanation to all of this. It didn't sound like anything to Nicky except another bullshit justification, a way for Julian to not take accountability for his actions like always. In a way, this was just like old times. Nicky, completely in the dark, battered and bruised, while Julian held the high ground. 

Julian shifts gears suddenly. "I never...I never cheated on you. I would never do that to you. You have to know that." 

Nicky stares back at him, _incensed._ "I kind of just wish you had, if we're being honest." 

"I..." he begins, staring around to make sure the two of them are entirely alone. He starts again, voice dangerously low in spite of their solitude, "I...I've missed you." 

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ Nicky doesn't say, because he's well and truly speechless, but he can imagine he's communicating the sentiment aptly, eyes wide with incredulity and pure rage.

"I tried everything, you know. To get to see you one last time, explain my side of things. Tried calling, _texting_ \- showed up at the studio a little early once, and that boss of yours - she's a real viper, you know. Threatened to call the cops on me, didn't care how useless it sounded..." he drifts off, because Nicky knows the rest. He's dirty, always has been when they were together, always will be. Julian licks his lips, then says, "you know, even when we were together, I thought everything was too good to be true, that you'd even take a chance on me. It made everything about this more difficult. But I always thought this city could do better, so as much as I loved you, there was still little wiggle room. So I --"

"You _what?_ Joined the _fucking mafia?"_ Nicky exclaims.

"You didn't see half the shit I had to," Julian says. "This city...I always called it a cesspool, but you have no idea, Nicky. Merrick makes things so that there's a real and proper balance. Everybody gets what they need under the table. When you keep the dogs at bay, it doesn't matter how rabid they are."

Nicky balks. "You don't get to decide that."

"Then who does?" Julian returns. " _Huh_? Come on. Hop off that pedestal of yours. It's what got your dad killed." 

At that, Nicky fumes. As long as he's been here nobody's taken the time to explain to him just what was going on, which okay, he's their captive, _fair_ , but Nicky was truly beginning to lose his patience with the way everybody seemed to think he was some criminal mastermind. He didn't know if it was equal parts Joe and papà or maybe the two of them together, but as far as missing paintings went - Nicky knew pretty much fuck-all.

"This has nothing to do with me," he coldly remarks.

"It has everything to do with you," Julian scoffs. "For _fuck's_ sake, why can't you seem to get that through your head?" and there it is, that tone of voice; Nicky astral projects to the kitchen of their apartment, an amalgamation of the countless times Julian had blown a fuse over a simple question flickering through his mind like a super eight.

He seems to notice. Not because of Nicky, no, because Nicky is actively making a show of how completely unaffected by this he is, of how he refuses to be on the receiving end of another one of Julian's tantrums.

"You know, a part of me knew, sort of," Julian continues, voice low now. "It was there, in the back of my head. I'd always stop it before it could actually materialize into a thought, but..." he takes a step towards Nicky despite himself, and Nicky doesn't exactly flinch, but he can't stop himself from tensing.

"I always knew something didn't add up. Trapped myself into thinking everything was just happening because god had a sense of humor. Genova must be a common surname, I'd say to myself. When you told me what happened to your father, and I did the math, I shoved it away entirely -- disregarded it as a coincidence. No, the man you love can't be _this_ involved, because that's just not how life works. But it does. And I couldn't ignore it anymore, barely around Merrick, but...I could around you. I did what I could, _all_ that I could to make sure you didn't get caught up in any of this."

"My fucking hero," Nicky spits, untouched by the sentiment. None of it fucking mattered. At the end of this really shit day, papà was still dead, he was still Merrick's prisoner, still missing in Joe's eyes - _Joe_ , shit, he must be losing his mind right about now -

"Then you had to fucking push," Julian rambles on. "Like you always do. You couldn't just take my goddamn word for it and leave well enough alone. All those nights I could barely hold it together around you, scared out of my mind Merrick had found out...and then _you_ ended up packing up your shit and leaving in the middle of the night, like a ghost." He lets out a chuckle, soft and laced in pain. "Figures."

"I left," Nicky starts, "because I didn't want to be your punching bag anymore."

"You _weren't_ ," Julian assures, and Nicky doesn't much care for how Julian feels because he doesn't get to have an opinion on any of this. "Christ, Nicky, I - I -"

What? _I love you?_

What good would that information do now when it was just as useless back then? 

"And then the boss is hooked up with a new dealer," Julian quickly continues, "deals are made, left and right. Guy's charming as all hell, he's got a clean record far as we can tell, and if he's undercover with the police, well ... It's not like I'm there for no reason." 

It takes Nicky mere moments to understand that Julian must be talking about Joe, and he goes rigid despite himself. There's too much to unpack here. Okay, at least now he has a semblance of an idea of what Joe had been up to all week, but he still has no idea who Andy is. That's a distant worry now - Joe was, by all accounts, stealing from Merrick. Which wasn't entirely detestable in Nicky's mind, but it was still mindlessly dangerous and he just wished Joe could have at least had the incentive to tell him about it.

"And then just like that, the boss' plans go up in smoke," says Julian. "I always thought it was completely ill-advised for him to put all his eggs in one basket, but what do I know - I'm just here because his father wants to prove he didn't shoot himself in the foot, putting him in charge of an operation this massive. Painting goes missing, Merrick's absolutely livid, Christ, if only you knew what he's like when he's lost his shit - and my mind, it just kept going back to the dinner, the night before. Something seemed wrong. The dealer, Jones -" _Nicky tenses at the mention of Joe_ \- "he was entirely too smug. I'd spent the whole evening wanting to wipe that damn smirk off his face. Merrick pulls out the big guns, tears the city upside down and inside out for the painting, and I take it upon myself to look into the guy even though Merrick hadn't thought twice. I knew something was up when there wasn't a single record on him I could find in any system. Staked him out after one of the meetings and followed him around for _god_ knows how long, till he pulled up to this building and...well. It was a little hard to ignore."

For Julian, it definitely would be. Nicky and Joe's home was in a complex north of the city, more on the quieter side. Nicky hadn't thought too much about it, willed himself not to since leaving Julian about a year and a half ago now, but in the earlier days of their relationship, when home was just a modest one-bedroom, Julian had always promised a move when he'd made lieutenant. And Nicky would tell him never to rush, that he was always going to be satisfied as long as they were together, and he'd meant it, truly. But the sentiment wore over time, serving to belittle Julian even though both he and Nicky knew that he meant nothing by it. 

"You were in the window," Julian continues. Barks out a laugh, high-pitched and hysterical. "I can't even make this up. You were. Making something in the kitchen, god knows what - probably his favorite, whatever that is. And he walked through the door, greeted you the same way I used to, and...that's when I just knew."

 _What?_ Nicky thinks, because he's tired of everything, of being angry and dumb and oblivious, _that I moved on? That life existed past you?_

"I was too stupid to see it then, but I see it now," Julian says, but his eyes betray him. Much like their days together, he seems to know he's wrong. "The signs were just too big to ignore. Merrick's most powerful asset goes missing, and like everything else...it seems to lead back to you. Fate's funny like that, huh?" He laughs, a nervous sound. 

It hits Nicky then, becoming more than just the creeping suspicion he'd had all day. 

Julian can spin it any which way he wants, but the fact of the matter is that he's a sore loser, and he can't stand that Joe succeeded where he had fucked up, _colossally._ That Nicky was happy and content, that he'd somewhat found life enjoyable past the deterioration of their relationship, and all Julian was left with was the blood on his hands, a shitty boss and a guilty conscience. 

It's the logic of an infant, but it was true to character, and at the end of the day, jealousy and resentment and grudges led him to this. Papà was dead, Nicky had somehow always known that, and whatever bone Merrick's family had to pick extended to him completely unfairly. Joe wasn't entirely off the hook, though Nicky loved him through and through, hoping that through all this, he was at the very least okay. But Julian...

Protecting Nicky - if Julian was even gonna call it that - concealing him, it was convenient, until it wasn't. It was crucial up until the night he'd slipped out of bed, packed his bags and made a beeline for Queenie's place, because she was the only one who'd known about them then. Until Nicky ignored his texts, his calls, treated him like a ghost. Until he'd seen with his own eyes how well off Nicky seemed to be, how he practically glowed in Joe's presence. After that, Merrick's prized possession goes missing, and _conveniently_ , Julian had a hunch. 

He tries to shoo away the thought, but be can't help it, imagining how all of this would have turned out if he'd stayed that night, turned over in bed instead of making the impulse decision that he's still so grateful for, two years ago now. 

It didn't matter.

Whatever he has with Joe, he'd do it all over again, a million times if it meant leaving Julian behind. 

It's Nicky's turn to speak. "You're a _pathetic_ , small man. You always were. This?" he motions, the best he can with his head, to the room they are in, adorned with artifacts Nicky would have never dreamt of seeing in the flesh, "it's a high for you. It's the only way you know how to exist."

Then he leans in, as far as his bonds allow, and says, "I didn't steal your fucking painting. But that's not why I'm here, is it?" 

Despite the fact that Julian seems to tower over him, tied down as he was, it was evidently clear that Nicky was looking down on him _._

He braces for the hit, but it never comes, so he slumps back onto the chair. He's done.

.

NIle is the first to approach Joe when he steps into the safehouse, practically breaking into a jog, Booker treading behind her. "Joe, I'm so _sorry -"_

She cuts herself off as Andy trails behind, followed by --

" _Quynh?_ " Booker and Nile say in unison.

Quynh offers up a nervous smile, "hey, guys."

Nile looks between Joe and Andy.

"She knows...knows Nicky," Joe explains weakly.

After a tense silence, Booker is the next to speak. "She's not the only one." He turns on his heel, beckoning the rest of them to follow him to their table, where in the short time he's had, Booker's managed to find and print pages upon pages of documents, of photographs relating to Nicky and his family, pinning them to a bulletin board. 

With a shaky hand, Joe reaches out to what looks like a family picture. His eyes go to Nicky immediately. He can't be older than twelve in this photo, but Joe peers into his sea colored eyes, and knows that it's unmistakably him. On either side of him are his parents - his mother on the right, with high cheekbones, a tense stare, blonde hair done in an uptight bun - and his father on the left, and he looks, to put it simply, like an older Nicky. Same eye color, same bone structure...it was Nicky's father, through and through.

"Anything on the dad?" Joe hears Andy ask.

"Valerio Genova," Booker says. "Art restorer; like father, like son I guess. Anyway, he didn't sound familiar to any of us, but check this out -" he points at a picture, black and white because of its newspaper print, and its Valerio standing next to a familiar-looking, shorter, bespectacled man.

"So?" Andy asks, at the same time Quynh says, "Is that Eric Obendorf?" 

Even Joe recognizes him; highly regarded, slime ball that he is, in the dealing world. 

"Yes," Booker answers Quynh. "Renowned gallery owner and dealer. Three years after this photo was taken, he was busted for multiple illegal deals. With the _Merricks_ , no less. Genova was his top restorer. Anyway, the same year Obendorf is arrested by the FBI...war breaks out between the Merricks and Lebedevs. _And_ Genova goes missing."

Joe cuts in, "m-missing? Nicky's father is dead."

"He is," Booker affirms, "unofficially. By all accounts, he's missing in the police database, but I ran it by Copley - he's on especially thin ice with Merrick, but he's somehow managed to convince the idiot that he had no idea about Nicky - anyway, he's dead. Killed by the Merricks. They were under the impression he'd stolen Obendorf's dealings, which the Merricks had intended to barter with the Lebedevs." 

"Did he?" Quynh asks.

"I'm willing to put money on it," Booker says. "Genova was his confidante. He had to be, to have any sort of access to the works. My guess is that he played along, until he grew a conscience. Anyway, he's long gone. Copley couldn't figure out exactly _how_ , but it must have been accidentally under torture. He never let up. The works are still missing, and _The Just Judges_ was supposed to be...restitution, I guess." 

Joe lets out a breath he hadn't known he was holding in. This was - this was all too much, on top of everything that's happened, and it feels grotesque, it feels wrong to know this much about Nicky, when Nicky himself is completely oblivious. And Joe, he never expected to be lifted of the blame, but he knows none of this would have happened had he been more transparent, and it cuts deep.

"He thinks Nicky stole it," Joe says, before he can stop himself. "Thinks he's trying to...to get back at them, or something. For what they did to his father."

It is silent for an oppressive moment, until Nile's voice cuts through. "Joe..."

"More to the point, he has no fucking idea what happened to his dad. He had no idea about this, about _any_ of this. This was never supposed to happen," Joe continues. "They must have - must have followed me, right after we took the painting, saw him and just--" 

He cuts himself off, distracted by the way he lets his eyes roam to the photos of Nicky Booker had left pinned on the board, because the fourth picture down leaves Joe cold. It's Nicky at some kind of backyard barbecue, all smiles, sitting next to --

that _can't_ be the same Keane Joe recognizes from all of his meetings with Merrick, but it somehow _is,_ in the next photograph at a camping trip where Keane's hand is possesively curled around Nicky's hip, and in the photograph after that of them at what looked like a house party, lips locked, Nicky's mouth still curled into a smile --

He must look like he's about to throw up, because Booker softly asks, "Joe?"

"Oh, _shit_ ," Joe says, and only that, continuing to gawk at the photographs. He doesn't blame Booker for having missed it, because even Joe can swear that the man in the photograph is somebody else entirely from the rougher, stick-up-the-ass Keane Joe recognizes from his dealings with Merrick.

Realization dawns on Booker a little too late. "Wait a minute," he says, "is that --"

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Andy says, eyes following. 

Despite himself, Booker murmurs, "trouble magnet..."

And that sends Joe into a quiet fury, rendering him unable to speak, and he can't even blame Booker; none of them knew anything about Keane beyond the fact that he was dirty. It sickens Joe, then as it always has, that he can exist in the minds of other people as something other than the abusive, piece-of-shit pig that he is. 

"Now, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Quynh demands before Joe can say anything.

"What - you know the guy?" Andy asks.

"Julian Keane," Quynh regards disdainfully. "I only met him a handful of times when Nicky started at the studio, but if _any_ of you are trying to imply that he deserved what happened--"

"He's dirty," Andy interrupts. "Has been for the last few years. He's practically Merrick's lapdog."

Quynh's mouth falls open only slightly. "Well, that's certainly not surprising."

"I'll kill him," Joe remarks. He's shaking. His anger feels useless now, distant - he can only feel the complete fury, the grief on Nicky's behalf. His father, Keane, Merrick...even Joe _._ The utter betrayal, the complete deception from all of them, and how he'd managed to find out all about it one day, _completely alone_. 

Nicky was beautiful, and he often didn't like it when Joe would remind him, but he was beautiful and radiant, the kindest soul, a moon in Joe's darkness, Joe's warmth in the cold, and he was the last person who deserved any of this.

"I'm gonna kill all of them," Joe reiterates.

After another quiet, tense moment follows, Joe doesn't register how close Andy is to him until he feels her hand on his shoulder. "We all will," she says, voice carrying to the rest of them. Then she turns around. "Let's get to work." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, i really hope this wasn't too wordy but I've been stringing you guys along for four chapters with so little an explanation of nicky's dad, so I hope this did enough! 
> 
> up next: more team bonding (especially now that quynh's back!), inevitable rescue mission!
> 
> thanks for reading so far!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: violence. we've established that Merrick is a slime ball but I feel like he outdoes himself here and is actually psychopathic in this ://///
> 
> anyway, enjoy!!

Joe can't find it in himself to actually fall asleep. It comes as a surprise to none of them, even though the anxiety hung in the air, thick and inescapable, in the mere hours before they were all supposed to head out, practically forcing them all awake.

The plan was, by all means, almost problematically simple. Joe, completely unarmed at Merrick's request, nobody else but himself, a concealed bulletproof vest and _Judges_ , tightly packed away. But any hope for a straightforward transaction had gone out the window with the acknowledgement that Merrick was an openly vile, sadistic person. Joe had stressed, multiple times, that this was less about the painting and more about his disloyalty, his dishonor upon Merrick's family name, and he was using Nicky as a means to flaunt his power, to force Joe on his knees and beg his forgiveness. 

Booker had hopes of contacting Copley, a backup plan if anything else, but after the intel provided on Valerio, Copley had gone radio silent. Joe's mistrust for him has largely subsided by now, so suspicions that Merrick had found out the full extent of his involvement with them is enough to elicit worry. As it was, they couldn't afford to wait around for his signal, so while Joe was left to handle Merrick, the most the rest of them could do was stand by, idly and out of sight, in case things were to escalate. Or, more accurately, _when_ things would escalate. 

"You know," comes Quynh's unmistakable voice from behind him, "it's a lot smaller in person."

Joe turns to acknowledge her from where he stands in front of _Judges_ , where they've hung it up in the safehouse for the last twenty-four hours before Joe was to pack it away, practically hand it gift wrapped to Merrick in exchange for Nicky. 

He feels crushed, _eradicated_ by the weight of his guilt. For Nicky and what lead them here, from his creeping suspicion that Joe had been sleeping around behind his back to the ever-present, inescapable reality of Nicky being taken from him, used like a pawn in Joe's crusade against the Merricks.

And, of course, that his family had gotten this far, _that he'd taken them this far_ , only for it to be all stripped away. _Judges_ was by no means supposed to be their last hurrah, only Joe's after finding a life with Nicky. To all of their credit, they were his family, and they'd never blame Joe for it nor would they ever hold it over his head. But it still served to make him feel like shit, like he'd failed them. 

Joe appreciates the sentiment and Quynh's specific form of alleviating tension, but the most he can muster with the creeping exhaustion is, "I thought the same."

Quynh moves closer so that they now stand shoulder to shoulder. _"Hey._ We'll get him back." 

Joe nods in acknowledgement of her words, though they do little to the anxiety bubbling inside him. 

A quiet moment passes before he says, "he found out. Before they took him."

Quynh turns to him. "About us?"

Joe shakes his head gently, rubs at his tired eyes. "No, but...I'd been in and out all week. Told him we had a new showcase, but...I guess he saw Andy's name come up on my phone, one too many times."

Quynh says nothing to that, her eyes indicating that she understands entirely what Joe is saying. 

"He kicked me out," Joe continues before he can stop himself. "That was the last time I saw him, before..." 

Quynh knows the rest. She'd chastised him, _heavily,_ and he had to remind himself that she knew Nicky outside of all of this, a fact he was too impossibly tired and disquieted to wrap his head around permanently. 

"You don't have to be here, you know," Joe says after a while. 

"Oh _shut up_ ," Quynh responds almost immediately. "Seriously, set the altruistic shit aside for a minute. You've been carrying it for too long."

It's a pep talk true to Quynh's character, but it does little to alleviate Joe of his guilt. It began with Soumaya, this pursuit for justice, evolving over the years into something resembling a reckless crusade. Regardless of what it was, Nicky had gotten caught in the middle of it. And that was unforgivable. 

"I mean it," Joe rattles on. "I never intended for this to happen. Least of all to drag you back into it."

Quynh knows he means it. Before the team, and outside of Quynh practically having been raised with Lykon, it had just been the two of them. Not an unlikely duo at all, not between being friends from art school and vigilantes in the same old guard, or whatever the media wanted to call it; Joe loved Quynh, just like he loved Soumaya, and he never protested her decision to step away, never even thought twice about it.

"I mean..." Quynh begins. "Not that you asked, but, you wanna know what's funny about all this?" she shakes her head, almost in disbelief. "I mean...I've been losing sleep for a year. Kicking myself, wondering if I'd made the right decision. Snagged a pretty cool gig, but woke up every morning feeling like I could've been doing something else. Something better with my time."

She lets out a small laugh, laced in pain, "I mean, at worst, I must have called Andy a handful of times. Thank god she was out of the country by then." 

"Andy," Joe says suddenly, remembering how the terms of Quynh's departure had resulted in what he would term up a break up, but what the two of them had casually called "something not entirely off the table." "How are you two?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Quynh scoffs in a way where she is obviously trying to hide something. She continues, "anyway, I'd managed to find a way to distract myself. Lost myself in work. Then Nicky came along, and he was still with Julian by then," - _Joe tenses -_ "I mean...I had my suspicions. I always let him know I was there if he'd needed me but he'd always tell me he was okay. And he's a complete joy to be around, and you know I don't just say that about anybody. It always felt weird calling myself his boss, but anyways - he showed up at my place once, must have been two, three in the morning. Just him and a duffle bag, and I _knew_."

A vein throbs in Joe's temple at that, unmistakably. 

"Helped him get back on his feet," Quynh continues, "found him a new place, gave him as many days as he needed off when I remembered I could do that. Three months later he shows up to work with this look in his eye. And the day after that, and the next day, too. I can't remember seeing him so.... _radiant_. I mean, he practically glowed. I really had to back him into a corner to get him to tell me who it was so I could make sure they were nothing like that - that _monster_. He said it was some guy he'd met at a gala and I didn't think twice, until I was curious enough for a picture, and - I _shit you not_ , Joe - I damn nearly had a heart attack."

Joe remembers the night before, how she'd told him that she kept her distance, _specifically_ because she didn't want to expose Nicky to any of their previous lives; an extension, truly, of Joe's own actions, though both proved useless, Nicky having fallen into Merrick's hands regardless. 

"But that'd been it, I guess. A sign that I couldn't just...just _leave_ this all behind. I know it sounds corny, but I think it's fate, or - or, _I don't know_ , just some higher power telling me that this is where I'm meant to be. With my family. Then I saw you on the news, back at it, and it lit a fire under my ass. I just...just hate that it took all this for me to realize it."

Joe takes her hand, rubs at it, words unnecessary to communicate that he'd never blame her, not for any of it, not when they'd always agreed that she'd deserved a life outside of this, a life of calm, and that she could return to this whenever she damn well pleased. Not when he'd enjoyed the same. 

"Will you ever forgive us?" Joe asks suddenly, achingly familiar of the answer though in need of it all the same, "for Lykon?"

Quynh shakes her head, a sure thing, extending a hand to the side of Joe's face. "I made the call, just the same as you. There's nothing to forgive."

Joe basks in the moment, this minute of peace they can barely afford, and then Andy pours into the room, Booker and Nile trailing behind her.

"You guys ready?" she asks.

Quynh pulls her hand away and nods along with Joe.

"Good," Andy says, and that's all she really needs to.

Booker moves forward to start dismantling the painting, but before he can, Joe says, "hey, guys."

They all turn their attention towards him, Booker even stopping in his tracks.

Joe licks his lips. "I just wanted to say that...that I'm --"

A sharp clap keeps him from finishing the thought, and he turns to Nile, who then proceeds to shush him. "Uh-uh. Not having that."

Joe blinks. "W-what?"

"You're not about to apologize for any of this," Booker says, continuing towards the painting.

"Not when you'd do the same for us," Nile continues.

"And definitely not when we've all agreed that we'd get Merrick back, eventually. Once you and Nicky are safe," finishes Andy. 

Joe relents and eyes Quynh.

"Told you," Quynh says.

.

The drive to Merrick's is longer than Joe can ever remember it being, though it was a reasonable distance from the city and a drive he'd made multiple times before. When he pulls up to the gate, heart in his throat as he tells Merrick's goon stationed there who he is and why he's here, he wills himself to remember that Booker, Nile, Andy and Quynh are not far behind, perched just out of view to make sure things proceed as smoothly as possible.

He pulls up by the front of the estate, pushing the car door open and slamming it behind him to reach for the backseat, for _Judges_ , but they pull their guns on him and tell him to make his way to the front door instead, and Joe has no choice but to oblige. 

Keane answers, gun in hand, flanked by two more of Merrick's men, and it takes everything within Joe not to disarm the bastard and shoot him, point blank, in both knees first. _And then_ his face. Instead he just stares ahead, allowing his rage to burn quietly, refusing to speak to him altogether; Keane should know why he's here.

Keane steps back, beckoning Joe to pass through the threshold, and as soon as he does he orders, "turn around. Hands behind your head."

Joe bites back select curse words and obliges. Keane kicks his feet apart and begins searching him, thoroughly; despite himself, Joe feels his hands ball into fists. 

Once he's done, Keane says to the other two men, "alright, bring it in." As the men disappear behind the door, Keane says to Joe, "follow me."

Joe lets out a deep breath he didn't know he'd been holding in. It reminds him of the first time he'd come to Merrick's estate on a bullshit pretense he can't be bothered to remember. He had felt nervous, precisely about Nicky, but for a different reason altogether. Nicky had been at home then, probably wondering why he'd been at the gallery so late. Now, he'd been Merrick's captive for twenty-four nausea-inducing hours. 

He understands in seconds that they're moving in the direction of the dining room. He doesn't need Keane to show him the way. He'd been here enough times that he could probably find his way to the area blindfolded, but he'll be disgusted about that another time; Joe is completely weary of his surroundings, searching every inch of the estate's interior for Nicky, as if Merrick could have him anywhere. 

When Joe passes through to the dining room, he immediately notices there is something more uplifted about the area, something indescribably more sophisticated. He can't quite pin down what it is, just that Merrick had most likely done it on purpose on top of everything, this sick contrast between panache and the true brutality of the transaction. 

"Mr. Jones," Merrck says from where he's cutting up his steak. "How nice of you to join us this evening. Please, have a seat."

Joe doesn't immediately move. He allows the anxiety in his stomach make itself at home, bites back his curses; nothing about this is elegant, as lavish as the display is. It's repulsive, through and through, and when he scans the room in search of Nicky only to come up short, it does little to quell his anxiety. 

"Mr. Jones," Merrick says again. "Where are your manners? Please. Sit."

It's a direct order this time. Unarmed as he is, Joe has no choice to oblige, making his way to the other end of the table to pull the chair open. The meal he'd otherwise find mouth watering actually makes his stomach turn. Merrick had planned this.

"Where is he?" Joe demands immediately. 

Merrick looks up. "You're truly a businessman at heart, you know that?" 

"Enough games, Merrick. I came here like you asked. I gave you what you wanted."

When Merrick laughs at that, Joe feels it crawl up his spine. "Not everything."

Joe goes rigid, hands balling into fists under the table and out of Merrick's view. The door Joe had entered through suddenly opens again, and two of the men who had answered the door alongside Keane come pouring in, _Judges_ still unpacked from the large black bag Joe had brought it in. When Merrick motions towards them, they begin to unravel it.

Joe doesn't exactly know what to expect next. Ideally, for Merrick to next bring out Nicky and send the two of them on their merry way, but that wasn't Merrick's style, as Joe had unfortunately come to understand. This was always going to be more than a simple transaction. The Merricks couldn't stand to be dishonored, and Joe's prepared to do anything to revert their attention to punishing him for his disloyalty, to leave Nicky out of this entirely.

"Beautiful," Merrick says when his men are done, almost as if it's his first time observing the painting. "I almost can't blame you, Mr. Jones."

Joe says nothing. He thinks he can feel his teeth crack from how hard he seems to be grinding them.

"Call me nosy," Merrick rattles on, "but I can't help but wonder what Mr. Genova's endgame was supposed to be. To avenge a loved one, believe me, _I understand_ , but cross that bridge - what did he intend to do with the painting?" 

"I already told you," Joe says through gritted teeth. "He had nothing to do with this."

"What do you stand to gain, lying to me?" Merrick demands. "You've already failed to protect him."

Joe would rather die than agree with Merrick on anything, but what he's saying is undeniable, and the shame pools deep in his gut.

"I'm not lying to you," Joe says, voice unwavering with conviction. "It was me, it was _all_ me. I took it. I took it because I knew I'd get away with it, knew how easy it would be to snatch it up right under your nose. And it was, wasn't it? And you can't stand that. Can't stand that this empire your father has built almost came tumbling down in one night because of your serious lapse in judgment-"

The undeniable sound of a fist hitting wood sends vibrations through the room. Joe doesn't smirk, can't find any true reason to smile through any of this, but the slight loss of composure on Merrick's end is wholly satisfying.

"He has nothing to do with this," Joe echos, the fatigue of sounding like a broken record beginning to take its toll on him.

"I don't know how many times you can say that until you can convince yourself otherwise," Merrick says, going in for a sip of wine, clearly in an attempt to mask his fury, "though I'd certainly like to see." 

"I'm not the one in need of convincing," Joe spits.

Merrick laughs bitterly into his wine glass before pulling it away altogether. "What did it for you, Mr. Jones? Did he promise you half this share? Do you owe his father a debt?" He leans in. "He's been giving my men nothing but a hard time, you know. If he's anything in bed like he's been here --"

Joe bolts upright at that, shaking the table all the way to Merrick's end as his thighs hit its underside. Keane is quick to act, drawing his gun on Joe, who honestly couldn't care less; he glowers at Merrick, who actually _flinches_ , unsurprisingly.

Merrick's lip twitches. "Put it away, Keane."

Keane doesn't lower his weapon. "But sir-"

"Put it away," Merrick orders again. He picks up his napkin from his lap and dabs it over his mouth, as if he were about to order the check. "There's no need for that, Mr. Jones. If you'll follow me...I'll take you to go see him."

Then he actually holds his hand out, as if to say _after you._ Joe goes blind with his anger. This was clearly a game to Merrick.

But he can't leave Nicky alone with these monsters for any much longer, can't even bear the thought of it, so he wills himself to move forward in Merrick's direction, towards where Keane stands, gun now holstered. Joe ignores the glare thrown in his direction, and crosses the threshold of the door Merrick had motioned towards. 

Joe finds himself in a corridor he can't remember having been in before. The latter half of his meetings with Merrick were done almost entirely on autopilot, the guilt of having abandoning Nicky to lonely dinners having consumed him (though nowhere in comparison to how he felt now), but even then, he can't help the growing pit of anxiety in his stomach at the unfamiliarity of this area of the manor. If things were to go south, which was inevitable by now, would the team even know where to look? 

It's adorned wall to wall with paintings equal parts remarkable and unknown to Joe, antique busts and lavish furniture. Joe never imagined a moment in time where he would ever be this grotesquely distracted from such extraordinary art. But Nicky, as he has been for the last twenty-four hours, occupies Joe's mind entirely - is he alright? Is he hurt? What had Merrick put him through the last twenty four hours? _What had_ _Keane?_

He shoves the thoughts to the back of his mind by the time they reach the end of the corridor, Keane punching a code into the side of a menacing door. Joe holds his breath as Merrick beckons him forward.

The room is a large, airy space, clearly some type of personalized gallery, with more paintings decorating its walls. On either side of the room there's intricate stained glass, fourteenth century, likely stolen. About six or seven of Merrick's men stand menacingly throughout it, Joe is too distracted to actually count, his eyes can only focus on one thing, on --

\-- Nicky. His arms are cruelly forced above his head, wrists in cuffs connected by a chain extending to the ceiling. He's gagged, and completely terrified. When he sees Joe he moves forward, visibly, as much as his bonds will allow; Joe thinks he can hear him call his name -

" _Nicolo_ \--" Joe's feet move of their own accord. 

Suddenly Merrick points a gun to his face, stopping him in his tracks. "Right where you are," Merrick warns.

Joe obliges, his trembling hands hanging in mid-air in appeasement. Even Nicky shakes his head slightly, almost as if to beg him not to come closer, beckoning him to stay away, even as Merrick redirects the gun towards Nicky's temple, stopping Joe's heart altogether.

He doesn't look nearly as beat up as Joe had feared; his eyes are red from tears, and several visible bruises, likely from having been dragged out of their home, are scattered across his skin. Relief floods Joe almost as quickly as it evaporates with the knowledge that Merrick might have refrained from harming Nicky intentionally - a subtle warning to Joe that something sinister would surely and shortly follow.

"You know, Mr. Jones," Merrick says, as if this were any other business transaction, "up until yesterday evening, I don't believe I've ever seen you at such a loss for words. Not even in spite of the remarkable works of art we have had the pleasure of assessing together. But I must say, it truly suits you."

Joe pointedly ignores him, or at least his words, eyes glued to Nicky, calculating how quickly he get that gun away from Nicky and maybe put Merrick in his place, almost forgetting that the three of them are not the only people in the room-

"So why don't you do what you always do. What you're best at." Merrick gives a tight shrug. "Give us a price."

 _What?_ Joe's heart hammers in his chest. _What is this?_

"Appraise him," Merrick's voice sounds distant, almost unreal. "How much is he worth?"

Joe doesn't give Merrick the satisfaction of an answer, at least not immediately. Merrick already knows. Joe had stolen his prized possession, hidden it in a ratty old jiu jitsu studio in the middle of the city; it was a clear testament to Merrick's ineptitude, and Merrick, right now, is punishing him.

But then Merrick's finger toys with the pistol's revolver and the sound is deafening. Joe's eyes shoot up to find the barrel now digging into the skin of Nicky's temple. 

"I -" Joe begins, "I--"

Merrick's laugh cuts through the room like a knife. "Look at you all tongue-tied." 

"All," Joe says suddenly and he can't remember when his mind had formed the thought; no, this is instinct. " _All._ And more."

Merrick looks between Joe and Nicky in mock appreciation, finger still refusing to leave the trigger. 

"Hm," Merrick considers cruelly, and then nods his approval. "I was hoping you'd say that." He jerks his head towards someone just out of Joe's line of vision, and suddenly a man comes up behind Joe and unceremoniously kicks him to his knees; the motion is swift enough to beckon Nicky to move in Joe's direction, completely instinctually, and Merrick presses the barrel into his temple even more roughly, as if Nicky was capable of getting away.

"Here's what we'll do," Merrick says, withdrawing the gun completely to move in Joe's direction until he is standing directly in front of him; from the corner of Joe's eye, he sees another one of Merrick's burly goons take his place, gun trained on Nicky. Keane is now directly to Nicky's left, watching the exchange from a safe distance, ever Merrick's lapdog, though Joe thinks he sees his eyes flicker towards Nicky every now and then with what was unmistakably guilt.

"You're going to tell me the names of your associates," Merrick continues, "or I _will_ kill him. Right here, right now. And I will leave you in this room to watch him rot." 

Joe bites the inside of his cheek, _fuming_ , almost detached from the situation entirely. Being forced to choose between Nicky and his family was something he'd only ever been reduced to once, and this was almost like a perverted repeat of what Andy had asked of him a mere week ago. 

He remembers what they'd all said earlier, and that they'd understand. That he'd do the same for them, and he would, undoubtedly. If any of them were here now, Nile would remind him they're family, and that that extends to Nicky; Booker would agree, albeit with an affectionately snide remark, and then he'd have new identities for all of them in the next forty-eight hours. 

But it didn't make it any easier. 

"All and more, you say," Merrick remarks. "Let's put it to the test." He lifts his gun with no warning and shoots Joe clean through his right bicep.

Nicky _howls_ , and it's all Joe hears above his own screams. Blood pours from the wound, and Joe scrambles to put pressure on it.

"Se-Sebastien," he gets out.

Merrick tuts, "sorry, I'm not quite sure I can hear you."

" _Sebastien_ ," Joe hisses, doubling over, and he can't remember that last time speaking his brother's name had brought him this much pain, "le Livre."

If Merrick recognizes the name, he doesn't seem to react. It doesn't take Joe by surprise. At this point, names to the Merricks were little more than just words, faceless beings with nothing in common but tragedy. But this wasn't what this was about. Merrick was a complete sociopath; this was a power play for him first, and a means to protect his family second. 

" _Nile_ ," Joe says next, bringing himself upright, and is suddenly reminded of her youth; how amongst them, she stood the most to lose, joining the team not on some reckless quest for revenge, but because she believed there was still good in the city, and that it could be salvaged. "Nile Freeman."

His breath feels caught in his throat. "Andy," he says finally. He can't help himself, can't help the way his eyes travel to Nicky's as he says the name, almost profane between them now, but nothing resembling resentment even crosses Nicky's eyes, just something desolate, something exhausted; an acknowledgement of Joe's pain, of their situation, of how they have been brought to this. "Andy Scythia." 

Merrick's amused smirk at that rattles Joe's bones. "You're them, aren't you?" he says next. "What the bloody news won't stop prattling on about. The Old Guard."

It's almost as if Merrick isn't even in the room. No, Joe stares ahead of him in place of an answer, _at Nicky_ , who stares back, utterly crestfallen. 

Merrick nods in his brutish goon's direction, and the man lowers his weapon, away from Nicky altogether. Then Merrick takes one step closer to Joe, where he kneels dejected and demoralized at his feet, and backhands him with enough force that the sickening sound reverberates around the room. Through the ringing in his hear, the searing pain in his upper arm, he hears Nicky scream, feels the weight of his body as he moves in Joe's direction in absolute fury. 

"You really believe you can just take from my family," Merrick spits. "Plunder the empire my father built, and from right under our noses."

It's not exactly a question, but Joe thinks to himself, _yes. I have been for years, doing this city a goddamned favor._

"Get him up," Merrick says suddenly to two of the men behind Joe, and he feels tight grips around his arms in seconds, and he hisses at the pain in his bicep, but it's _nothing_ , nothing compared to the panic that seizes him as he's dragged up, sudden and surely, while Merrick does nothing to cut Nicky down. 

"Wait," Joe says, and suddenly he realizes he's shouting, " _hey - hey, wait -_ we had a deal --"

"We had an understanding, Mr. Jones," Merrick interrupts him. "You give me the painting... _I let you see him._ "

Joe blanches, mouth falling open in absolute fury. His eyes fall on Nicky, eyes now ablaze, new tears beginning to form. 

" _Judges_ is exceptional, but you have to understand that as a businessman, I am always looking towards new opportunities," Merrick says. "New opportunities in exchange for...lost assets."

Nicky shakes his head, blinks tears out of his eyes, says Joe's name behind the gag, _begs -_

Joe manages to slip one of his arms out of one of the men's grip, hurling himself towards Nicky before they aggressively yank him back, and he ignores the searing pain that accompanies the motion to scream, "Nicky - _Nicolo--"_

"I'm sure you're aware we have methods of jogging his memory," Merrick continues. "And with enough persuasion, well...he'll practically be begging to tell us where his father's gone and hidden the rest of it."

"He doesn't know anything," Joe shouts, _implores_ , " _nothing_ about any of this - this was never supposed to happen, _please_ -"

"Let me put it in terms you will hopefully understand," Merrick says cruelly. Joe refuses to meet his gaze, is frankly unable to tear his eyes away from Nicky, who is still thrashing. One of the men holding Joe grabs the hair at the back of his head, forcing it in Merrick's direction, urging him to look at Merrick as he says, "I will carve pieces off of him for years to get what I want. And whatever's left...I'm sure Lebedev can find use for." 

And at that, Joe goes absolutely ballistic, bellows obscenities in an incomprehensible amalgamation of multiple languages, howls like an animal. Even Keane moves towards Merrick's direction, perhaps in protest; it doesn't matter, Joe thinks distantly, any sudden change of heart from the bastard won't change the fact that Joe will kill him anyway, kill them all once he gets to Nicky.

Nicky, who is screaming his name now, and it cuts through Joe, shatters him entirely; Joe actually thinks he can feel himself die.

" _Nicolo-"_

" _Joe!”_ Nicky screams back, and it sounds grotesque behind the gag, it swallows Joe whole - he can't remember having ever heard Nicky's voice sound so strained, never would have even imagined it.

Joe doesn't know what more he can do; he has screamed himself hoarse, his voice foreign to even him now. Where the hell was Andy? Were the hell were the rest of them, couldn't any of them feel like something was horribly, horribly wrong --

"Take me," Joe says directly to Merrick now. "Take me instead. I swear to you, I - I'll give you anything you want," it sounds useless to say, it sounds pathetic, he's already given what Merrick what he's wanted, perhaps more, " _p_ _lease-"_

"Bring him downstairs," Merrick says, unbothered. "Find these associates of his. I'm sure they're all lovely in person." 

Joe's eyes shoot back to Nicky, whose body is still inclined towards Joe's as far as Joe can tell, the front of his shirt now stained with tears. Joe doesn't know how much longer he can scream Nicky's name. His lips form to try to say something else - say what? _I'm sorry?_ No, sorry is an admission of failure, sorry means losing Nicky forever -

Suddenly, and frankly too loudly to be a figment of Joe's imagination, the echo of a gunshot rings from down the corridor. Merrick pales, and even Nicky has stopped thrashing, at least for a moment, gasping for air behind the gag. And just like that, the stained glass Joe had no time to admire is nothing but shattered remains on the gala floor, in its place -

Andy.

Joe doesn't wait, swooping down upon the chance to disarm the man directly to his left, shooting the man to his right before he has a chance to register any of this, _Joe barely registering any of this_ , and then repeating the action to the other man.

Andy's on her feet now, advancing towards one of Merrick's men, shooting him through the knee and then cleanly through the chest. Joe aims his own gun towards Merrick, but is forced to hesitate when he realizes Nicky is too close to him, dangerously close to be hit from how far away Joe can afford to aim. So he shoots another one of Merrick's men, then rolls out of the way when he realizes he's out of bullets as another one of the men begins to advance. From the corner of his eye, he sees Keane pull Merrick out of the line of fire. 

Behind him, Nile, Booker and Quynh pour into the room. 

"Someone said you wanted to see us?" Quynh asks the man who had just shot at Joe, not necessarily waiting for an answer as she drives a bullet through his skull. 

But Joe only really has eyes for Nicky, center of the room still, trembling as he brings his elbows up to the front of his face to shield himself the best he can from the carnage. 

" _Get him out of here,_ _"_ he hears Merrick order Keane, and Joe sees red as Keane closes in on Nicky, hands fumbling with keys to get his wrists free of the chains.

"Nile," Joe gets out, " _Nile, cover me!"_

And she does, without hesitation as Joe abruptly tackles Keane with enough force to send his gun sliding across the room. Joe's on top of him now, landing punch after punch, pressing his hands down on the bastard's throat and watching him go blue as he says in a voice he can't even recognize, " _you hurt Nicky."_ Then he hauls him up and slams him against the marble floor, and he's gone. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Merrick reaches for a stray gun, but Andy kicks it out of his reach.

"Book!" Quynh says, running up to Nicky. "Book, help me get him down --"

"Q- _Queenie_?" Nicky gets out as soon as Quynh pulls the gag out of his mouth. 

"Hey," Quynh says in return, "hey, Nicky. Hey, _look at me_. You're okay now." Almost as if to prove her point, she shoots one of Merrick's men point blank from where he's slumped up against the wall behind Nicky, gun raised to them, burying Nicky's forehead in her shoulder as she does.

As the man topples over lifeless, she yells, "Book, _goddamnit --"_

"Got 'em," Booker says suddenly, fishing the keys from where they had slid away from Keane's body. He tosses them to Quynh, who catches them swiftly.

Joe makes it to Nicky in quick strides, his long legs breaking into something short of a sprint. Without looking, Quynh moves to accommodate him, shuffling to the side to get the cuffs open as Joe takes Nicky's face in his hands. 

"Oh - oh, _Nicolo_ ," Joe says, the only words he can think to form right now. He moves forward and Nicky meets him halfway, their foreheads pressing together, “ _tesoro..."_

"Joe," Nicky returns, and Joe thinks he can taste his tears, "Joe, y-you're hurt-"

And he's right, and the adrenaline is wearing off in place of a throbbing pain that sets his nerve endings on fire, but he shakes his head, dismisses it to say, "I'm _sorry,_ Nicky -- I am so sorry-"

Quynh gets the cuffs off by then, steadying Nicky as Joe takes his wrists, red from strain, to rub the feeling back into them, feeling his pulse, feeling his breath, reminding himself that he's alive, they're together, this is real.

"Joe," that's Andy's voice, low, dangerously, giving Joe no choice but to divert his attention, and now he can see why; Merrick is cowering in her grip, hands hanging in midair like he'd forced Joe to do mere moments ago.

Joe takes in a sharp inhale, glancing over to Quynh, who gives him a quick nod. Joe curls his hand around the back of Nicky's neck, a silent promise between them that he'll be back soon. Nicky's tired eyes follow him as he crosses the room, Quynh taking Joe's place in steadying Nicky, almost subconsciously moving him further away from Merrick. Nile and Booker flank him, covered in blood that is not theirs. 

" _P_ - _please,"_ Merrick says as Andy pulls away, Joe moving to stand in front of him, gun in hand. It makes Joe want to bark out a laugh if he wasn't drowning in his own rage. Maybe Merrick lost his backbone in the carnage; maybe he never really had one, the way he’d used an innocent man as an instrument to flaunt his power. 

"Take him," Merrick says next. "Take him, t-t-take the painting - I didn't harm him, Jones, I _swear --"_

"Like you didn’t harm Soumaya?" Joe asks. He doesn't remember having formed the words. They spill out of his mouth uncontrollably, from the part of his brain where his sister overpowers everything else. 

Merrick's eyes go wide at that, _slightly._ It's needlessly gratifying, if anything was to be salvaged from this at all. 

"If you're going to beg me for your life, you might as well do it with my real name," Joe says next, voice trembling though he can't help it. 

Merrick doesn't push. Maybe he already knows.

"Yusuf Al-Kaysani." 

He doesn't wait for Merrick to respond, just shoots the bastard clean through the eye, doesn't even watch his body hit the ground because he's turning to look at Nicky, who's pulling away from the side of Quynh's neck where she'd beckoned him to look away. 

Something passes over Nicky's eyes when they meet his, something sad, something irreversible. 

Joe forgets there's anybody else in the room and moves towards him, but they all jump in the direction of where Copley spills into the room.

"We need to leave," Copley demands of them, " _now."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm way more adept at writing dialogue as opposed to action so I apologize if anything in this seems disjointed/weird
> 
> anyways, yay they finally got nicky!!
> 
> next chapter (MAYBE the last, i have yet to decide): joe and nicky healing, nicky gets to know the team, team backstories!
> 
> thanks for reading as always <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLOOOOOOO
> 
> ok, just wanna get this off my chest and apologize for how long it took me to get this chapter out lol. If you didn't even notice that's gucci but I feel like with how quickly I was churning out chapters compared to how it took me a little over a week to get this done...sorry!! if you're invested in this I didn't mean to c: life got a little hectic on my end.
> 
> next, if you're still here: THANK YOU!!! your words have been too kind and have meant the world to me. I'm so happy it's not just me who enjoys this niche lil au.
> 
> last, this chapter is WORDDDYYY. a lotta character backstories, a lotta back and forth between joe and nicky (who is RIGHTFULLY pissed, resentful, and apprehensive).
> 
> chapter warnings: a lot of past violence is spoken about. joe, andy and booker's backstories in this are particularly brutal. joe's involves suicide (that is STAGED, but it's still treated like it isn’t), andy's involves drug addiction and booker's involves terminal illness and child death. I'M SORRYYYYYYY

Joe can't remember how long he's been asleep - or comatose, yeah, that would be a better way of putting it.

Between the hysteria of losing Nicky, the hours on end he'd kept himself awake as a result, the chaos that ensued in his rampage to bring back the love of his life - his body felt distant, his mind almost completely removed, exhaustion crashing down on him almost like a punishment of having deprived himself of sleep for so long. 

"Hey." that's Nicky's voice, he's so sure, it's the only sound in the world that could beckon him towards complete and total awareness. "As much as I enjoy watching you sleep, I'm glad you're awake."

Joe lets his eyes adjust to the room, dark and dim where they're essentially underground in the safehouse. This room in particular had been collecting dust, untouched from the year Andy had spent god knows where, but it's still just how Joe remembers it. A single bed, big enough for two, a nightstand and a mat Andy had unceremoniously dragged from the upstairs studio on the floor next to the bed. It looks slept in, and Joe quickly realizes it's where Nicky had slept the previous night. 

He turns his head, winces through the ache of the motion, to find Nicky sitting on the side of the bed, hand planted just shy of Joe's left shoulder, almost like it's outstretched to touch him. He's in loose fitting jeans and one of the Tracy Chapman shirts Joe had managed to hastily stuff into the duffle bag days ago, but it does little to hide the bruises littered across his arms, the red rings around his wrists. 

"Bedhead?" Joe asks. 

Nicky smiles, _slightly_ , lets out a huff unless it's Joe's imagination. "Nicely tousled." 

Joe reaches out his arm, or at least tries to, before remembering oh, yeah - _his arm._

"Shiiii- _iiiiiiiiit,_ " Joe gets out, not exaggerating at _all._ The pain is not as a searing as it had been since, well - he's not entirely sure how long he's been out. His head feels heavy enough that if Nicky had told him it had been a straight day, he'd believe him. 

"It's okay," Nicky says now, "you're okay. Sit up a little, if you can. Careful, so you're not putting any weight on it." 

He looks down at his arm, encased in a sling Nile had most likely fashioned.

Nicky's mouth twitches to the side slightly. "You're lucky your friend used to be an army medic. I made the... _asinine_ suggestion of taking you to the hospital."

Fragments of memories before he had lost consciousness return to Joe then, doing little to ease the ever present migraine. Copley'd gotten them out like always, half-heartedly explaining to Joe that he'd bugged the gallery as a means to pin down Merrick's movements, that he'd been the one to let Andy and the rest of them in, that the knowledge of their identities had died with Merrick, Keane and the rest of them. 

They'd made a beeline for the studio, the distant sound of police sirens fading away as Joe head on Nicky's lap, Nile's bloodied hands pressed against the meat of his upper arm, Andy perhaps telling Booker to drive faster, he's not sure, little was discernible over the sound of Nicky's panicked cries.

_Nicky —_

— and the way Joe had allowed this to happen, for Nicky to be taken from him as easy as he had been, for a jealous and bitter ex to inexplicably be involved in any of this, for said ex to have had Nicky at his mercy for at least twenty four hours - 

"Did he hurt you?" he asks, or exclaims, really. It doesn't alarm Nicky; he's probably been waiting for the question, knowing in the absence of Joe's elaboration that he's not necessarily talking about Merrick. 

Nicky laughs, quiet, sure and pained. "It's a little too late for that, hayati."

Joe helplessly stares at him. The memory of killing Keane exists barely as an afterthought. The bastard had deserved more than what Joe had done, and he was lucky that Joe had simply been holding back.

"Would it have mattered, if he did?" Nicky continues. "Damage's been done." 

"Nicky..." Joe begins, not completely sure what more he can say. He'd apologized at the gallery. He'd apologized again, over and over as he'd lost consciousness in the van, Nicky screaming over his limp body. The word was devoid of meaning, the same way it had been in their apartment days ago.

"I'm sorry," _Nicky_ ends up saying, and Joe wants to get angry on his behalf, tell him nothing about this could ever possibly been his fault, regardless of how much it has to do with him. "Thank you for...finding me. Getting me back."

It's quiet for a moment but shorter than Joe is probably making it out to be. It crushes him, this weight of this silence, the way Nicky was always the last person he'd ever imagine being this awkward and uneasy around. The way he deserves it. 

"I don't know what more to say," Joe says, full of shame. "I ...I'm so sorry, _tesoro._ That all this happened. That it happened to you."

Nicky regards that. "How very unlike you, to be out of words."

It's not laced in cruelty, not the way Merrick had said it. In fact, Joe was sure that Nicky hadn't been thinking of Merrick at all. But the words engulf him anyway, like tides of grief. Nicky seems to notice. 

"Nicky, I --" Joe begins again; bites his tongue so he doesn't end sounding like a broken record. "I will spend the rest of my life, trying to make things right. That much I know. That much I can promise you, and I - I know I haven't been able to promise much."

"Joe, it's -" Nicky returns, or tries to, instead biting at the inside of his cheek in visible frustration. God, Joe wants to touch him. Hold him, get on his knees if it weren't for his fucking arm --

"It's more than that," Nicky starts again. He gestures between the two of them. "This? This can't be experimental. I can't be your test run to see if you're ready to be a - I _don't know_ , a fucking _civilian_ again -"

"You're _not,_ " Joe says, _pleads_ , "tesoro, you... _us?_ It happened, okay? It was unexpected, but it wasn't an inconvenience -"

"Oh _Cristo_ ," Nicky says, lifting himself up the bed to rub at his eyes. "Yes it was. _Yes it was, Joe,_ because look where it got us." 

Joe's heart sinks at that, but he's not giving up, not yet, not even when he can feel himself physically react to how Nicky had said "was" as opposed to "is". "You're right, Nicky. You're right, I - I should have been more honest with you. More open. When I knew what we had was real, that I was in it for the long haul, I just...I didn't think the rest of it mattered. I _know_ it fucking does, and it shouldn't have taken all this for me to realize it."

Nicky lowers his arms where they were folded across his chest. "Were you ever going to stop lying to me?"

Joe realizes, then and there, that there will be no answer that will ever satisfy Nicky. He can say yes enough times to convince hi here and now, but there is no doubt it would linger as a creeping suspicion, would find its way into their future conversations - if there ever really were to be any, if Nicky miraculously found a way to love Joe past all this. 

"Yes," he confirms. Nicky's expression is unreadable. "I was. It was all I could think about at the gala, about how I could lose you forever. About how even if I did, if you'd never forgive me, you at least deserved to know why. About how...I didn't want to run anymore. How you were the reason why." 

Nicky regards that. His eyes soften a little, or at least Joe hopes so. "Tell me about Soumaya," he ends up saying, and he's redirecting his gaze towards Joe, peering into his very soul.

The sensation, a personality trait to him by now if he wasn't lying to himself, of averting the conversation entirely is out of the question. Joe - he'll pour his heart out to Nicky, tell him everything he wants to know, everything he'll listen to and more.

"She...she was, so, _so_ beautiful," Joe say, and he feels tears despite himself, tries not to let them fall, this isn't about him _, you are not the victim._ "Her soul was beautiful. It still is. She looked a lot like me, but shorter. More curls than me, if you can imagine. And her smile...you always say I smile like the sun. Soumaya was...fuck. A supernova."

Joe is lost enough in happier memories with her that he doesn't notice Nicky returning to sit by his side until the weight of the mattress shifts beneath them.

"Quynh loved her too. Queenie," he corrects himself quickly, but it's no use at this point, with Nicky completely out of the dark. "We've been friends for about twelve, thirteen years now. We met in art school. Anyway, my parents always thought drawing was a waste of time. The only reason they'd agreed to pay for any of it was if I had a backup plan, pin down something as a dealer, an appraiser, maybe both. Soumaya was....I don't know, their success story. And I wasn't necessarily a black sheep, but my parents still held her up as the standard, but it never made us resentful. We always got along even though we never agreed on anything. She was always a bit more of a realist. Kind of a stick in the mud. It made me love her more, how different we were."

Nicky's fingers move, seemingly of their own accord, inching themselves towards Joe's. "She sounds lovely."

"She was," Joe says. "She graduated top of her year. Honors and all. It wasn't long before she'd booked this job at Tillman's - the bank, you know? I thought she was better than that, but it was good money and she seemed happy. But after a while she'd stop answering my texts, start calling me at erratic hours, asking for company while she walked back to her apartment from the office. I didn't think much of it then, but I was home on break one summer and something seemed...off. And she wouldn't tell me what it was, just told me to stop playing overprotective brother, that it didn't suit me. But my parents, they picked up on it too. Then the next day, she --"

Joe chokes on a breath then. He tries to keep the tears at bay. It's entirely fucked up for Nicky to be the one comforting him through all of what's happened, but he's gone so long without talking about Soumaya, and Nicky's hand is already over his anyway -

"I get called out of class. The back of my head, I already know. You think it's something you can cling to, that expectation, the sick sort of vindication of knowing to anticipate bad news. Like it’ll keep you afloat. But they tell me that my sister's died, that she leapt off the 42nd floor of the Tillman building, and I just felt...incomplete. Like I didn't belong here anymore. Like there was no point to any of this, being around when Soumaya wasn't. Like it wasn't fair."

His head is buried in his hand now, the other hand buried in Nicky's. 

"I go home and my parents are a wreck. It takes days for them to start pointing fingers. Blaming each other, saying they were too hard on her, too hard on us. I couldn't be there for any of it because I know they were wrong but they didn't want to hear anything else.It broke my heart, how they'd rather shoulder the blame then believe anything else was at play. That they'd redirect their grief at me, at my inability to accept what had happened. I - I couldn't be there for it Nicky."

Nicky nods. "I understand."

"And I couldn't accept it. I didn't. Soumaya, she - I mean, she had off days, but she she had so much to live for. She'd never do that to herself. Never do that to _me._ I mean, none of it made sense, the way Tillman's refused to release CCTV, the settlement they'd given my parents that was a little too generous - I started thinking to myself, what if - what if Soumaya had seen something she wasn't supposed to?"

In something that sounds a cross between a question and a confirmation, Nicky says, "she did."

Joe nods. "The Merricks were laundering money there. I had enough reason to believe why, and so did the six other cases similar to Soumaya's. But, unsurprisingly enough, the police were unable to make anything out of it. That's when I knew I was on my own. I told Quynh, 'cause she was the only other person at the time I knew would understand. And she introduced me to Andy."

"The ninja," Nicky remarks.

Joe shakes his head in amusement. "Jiujitsu, _tesoro_. A little more brutal. But a few sessions in, she told me about her mom. I'm sure she'll tell you too, in time. But we...we were never _like that,_ Nicky. Quynh would agree with me. They've been on off for the past thirteen years. They're practically my sisters."

Nicky says nothing to that, just waits for Joe to continue. All their arguments about Andy had found a place in the backs of their minds, this more terrifying reality an unfortunate, primary concern.

"I mean...that's it. Quynh was on board from the get go, brought in Lykon around not long after. Book came in about five years ago. Nile's the newest, it'll be three years for her in a few weeks. We were doing the police's jobs for them, looking into where the Merricks had a hold on things. It definitely helped that Booker's former CSI."

"So..." Nicky begins. "All those things I saw on the news? Everything about an...old guard? That was..."

Joe nods. "A year ago, we had it on shit intel that the middle Merrick was about to ship out from this abandoned warehouse, right outside of Elmwood. Arrived to basically a gun show. Lykon was hit, and we were able to pull him out of it and get him back here, back to the studio, but he didn't make it." Joe shakes his head. "Quynh was beside herself. She blamed herself, which was ridiculous, but understandable. They were raised together, you know. Pretty much siblings. We all made the call, but she was his big sister. She had no choice but to bear the guilt. Then she said she'd wanted out, said we ran ourselves into the ground for years with nothing to show for it. That we all deserved peace. I didn't know what she meant then. I couldn't even begin to think of what life could be like outside of any of this...until that night at the gala. When I met you."

Nicky averts his gaze. Joe doesn't blame him and ignores the way his heart shatters for the umpteenth time. The foundation of trust between them wasn't just faulty, it was almost entirely gone. Joe had effectively lied to Nicky about most everything except his love for him for a year. And Joe being hurt on top of this, physically and emotionally by pouring his heart out about Soumaya, alongside Nicky dealing with the aftermath of his father...he’s angry on Nicky’s behalf. None of this was fair.

"Nicky -" Joe begins, but two sharp knocks resound around the room, and he can't help himself as he jumps, startled. In moments, Booker's head pops from behind the doorway. 

"Yes?" Joe asks, trying to mask his exasperation.

"Andy and I are making dinner," Booker announces. "If you guys...can stomach that kind of thing right now." 

Nicky turns back to look at Joe, before returning his gaze to Booker. "Dinner sounds good."

.

"... _police responded to reports of gunfire around 8:38 p.m.. Upon arrival, they discovered bodies in the driveway, the main entrance, the dining room entrance, and a quote unquote "personal gallery" where Merrick reportedly owned millions of dollars worth of stolen artwork, many of which appeared to be damaged and or destroyed. Authorities were able to locate an original Van Wyck,_ The Just Judges, _missing after having been stolen approximately eighty years ago from St Bavo's Cathedral in Belgium,"_ a nicely dressed woman says on the news. 

Joe remembers the absurdity of it all, how a week ago this stupid fucking painting had meant life or death to them, and how twenty four hours ago, he hadn't even thought twice about it once he was able to get Nicky to safety and a bullet in Merrick's head. How Nile, of all fucking people, agreed to Booker's suggestion to set the estate ablaze and all the paintings that would have otherwise fallen into Lebedev's hands along with it, how they had to abandon the thought completely when the sound of police sirens became more and more apparent. 

_"Police have identified two of the victims as Steven Merrick as well as police lieutenant Julian Keane."_

Joe feels Nicky go tense at that from where he's got his hand around Joe's good arm, helping him into the living area of the safe house.

 _"We are currently running with the theory that the stolen artwork led to a deal gone wrong_ ," the police chief is next seen saying, _"and we plan on continuing with this ongoing investigation."_

 _"Did you know Julian Keane was in league with the Merrick family?"_ asks one reporter at the same time another one prods, _"do you believe this could be the work of the old guar-"_

The TV abruptly turns off, prompting Nile to exclaim, "Uh, _hey_. Quynh and I were watching that."

Joe's eyes shoot to where Booker's in the kitchen with Andy unloading a bag of groceries, remote in hand. Nile and Quynh follow Booker's gaze, eyes falling upon Nicky, who is now paper white, his fingers around Joe's arm like a vice.

"Nicky," Quynh says first, getting up from the couch, her dark eyes shooting between Nicky and Joe. "Joe, you good?"

Joe shrugs. "Been better."

"We'll have dinner ready in a bit," Andy announces. "Once Book and I figure out how to set the timer on this thing."

"Actually," Nicky interjects quietly, "do you mind if I make something?"

All their eyes fall on him.

Nicky shrugs. "Just need the distraction." 

.

Nicky ends up throwing something together with an array of ingredients similar to their pantry from home, cooking something for Joe's palette without even thinking twice about it. He has to remind himself, a shameful amount of times, to hold back on spices because he doesn't know anything about these people and their tolerance level, but the end result is something resembling a tagine that has Andy going back in for seconds.

Dinner's quiet. It feels wrong, like Nicky is Joe's awkward last minute guest, like he's an unwanted witness to some family affair. He feels Queenie's - shit, _no,_ Quynh's eyes on him, big and rueful. With everything that's happened they'd had very little time to speak to each other alone, for her to explain her side of things, though Nicky is not sure if he even has the energy to be angry with her. She'd certainly been withholding but to a certain degree, so had he. They didn't share a home together, they weren't madly in love with each other. 

At that thought, Nicky's eyes drift to where Joe is half-hazzardly attempting to cut through his meat with one only hand, biting at the inside of his cheek in frustration.

Without thinking, Nicky leans in from where he's sitting to Joe's left, lending him an extra hand before taking over the task altogether, cutting the chicken up into bite sized pieces. 

”Thank you, _tesoro_ ,” Joe says in an uncharacteristically small voice.

Nicky smiles in place of an _you're welcome_ , a tentative thing, and then pulls back to lean against his chair. The bruises around his wrists burn a deep, ugly red all of a sudden, and he hastens to pull his sleeves up over them.

Andy regards them for a moment. "Okay, enough of this shit. You're probably dying to ask a lot of questions by now, right, kid? Shoot."

" _Andy,_ " Quynh says, in what sounds like a warning tone. 

Nicky's eyes flicker between the two of them. Then they settle on Joe's, who gives him an encouraging half-smile. "I mean, I ... guess you could say I'm a little curious."

Booker undoes his flask. "That's putting it nicely."

"Why don't we just go around and give Nicky our own explanations?" Nile suggests.

Booker barks a laugh at that. "What, like some fucked up AA meeting?"

" _Exactly_ like that," Andy agrees. "I'll go first." Then she turns to Nicky. "What do you wanna know?"

Nicky doesn't know where to start even, even when he's subconsciously drafted about a million questions. He settles on, "Joe told about me about...about what happened to Soumaya. I'm sure you all have similar stories -"

"They killed my mom," Andy bluntly explains. The grief is palpable in her eyes and she goes ramrod straight as she says it. It's a little out of Nicky's view, but he thinks he sees Quynh's hand go over Andy's thigh under the table.

He barely has a chance to react before she continues.

"After my dad died, it was just the two of us. Which was perfect, since we couldn't stand each other. But she was still my mom and she had to find a way to bring home the bacon somehow. And she did. I never really figured how then, but the coming home late, the being coked out of her mind half the time...it doesn't leave a lot of room for interpretation. She was....one of Merrick's mules. But I didn't find out about that til later. Anyway, one day this lady came by and warned her that they'd take me away if she didn't find a way to slow down and I guess that did it for her. Couple weeks later, she gets me out of bed and I can just tell that something's off. And things were, most days, but her eyes...there was something she wasn't telling me. Something I don't even think she was so sure of herself. So she kisses me, leaves my lunch money for the day on the table and...that was just it." Andy shrugs. "She's gone. Last time I ever saw her."

Nicky sadly regards that. "And you think the Merricks - ?"

"Oh, I know they killed her," Andy corrects. "The deposition said as much. She got caught dealing and they agreed to strap a wire on her, make it so that none if it would've happened if she'd cooperated. And she couldn't say no, not when the only other option was them taking me away. Long story short, Merrick Sr found out. And I think you know by now they don't take too kindly to disloyalty."

Nicky winces, hears the distant sound of a gunshot tearing through Joe's bicep, briefly glances at him to find his eyes on Nicky, watching him listen, arm outstretched around the back of Nicky's chair. 

"I guess what the cops failed to realize is that the Merricks have enough of them on their side to just have made it all....disappear. And the prosecution agreed, I mean it's not like they could try anybody when there's no body. So it just found itself at the bottom of some sorry fuck's stack of case files. Poor, drug addicted single mom goes missing? People just arrive at their own conclusions."

Before Nicky can offer up any words of comfort, Quynh says, "Andy met a bunch of other survivors with similar stories in support groups. It gave her the incentive to start the jiu jitsu studio." She smiles tentatively. "It's how we met."

Joe lets out a sound that sounds somehow like a cross between a groan and a coo. 

" _What?"_ Andy demands.

"Nothing, I'm just suddenly reminded of all the times Quynh would keep me up till 2 am, going on and on in _my_ dorm about her hot jiu jitsu instructor."

Nile and Booker laugh as Quynh admits, "I mean Joe's vastly oversimplifying it, but he's not entirely wrong. There were enough muggings and assaults in and around campus that I just wanted to find a way to defend myself." She shrugs. "Joe's probably told you by now how I introduced the two of them. _You're welcome,_ " she says now to Joe, who winks in return.

"I didn't think it was a coincidence that they shared grief," Quynh explains. "I just thought it was enough proof that this city is a fucking cesspit and it's about time somebody did something about it. So it's enough to say that I was on board. And when my brother Lykon caught a whiff of it, _shit_ , he was even more excited than I was." She takes a regretful pause. "I just thought it just be another excuse for us to be around each other all the time. And we were. We had a good run, until..."

She doesn't continue, doesn't have to, acknowledges that Nicky already knows and lets herself drift off, elbowing Nile instead.

Nile's lips twitches. "I, uh..." she looks between the five of them, as if she was about to reveal something about herself to more than just Nicky.

"I was in Afghanistan for about two years. Army medic. Woke up in the ICU one day with about a million stitches," she demonstratively pulls down her turtle neck to reveal sutures around her throat, causing Nicky to wince, "so they sent me home. Honorable discharge. Figured I'd chase my pipe dreams now that I had the time, so I took up art history. Still am. It's always been my passion but...I don't know. I can't keep treating it like a distraction."

She and Nicky's eyes meet then, and he begins to understand what she means.

"It's not like I expected any less when I came back," Nile continues. "City what just as it'd been when I'd left it. Even _worse_ , if you can imagine. I couldn't wrap my head around putting myself in the line of fire for someone like Merrick. How my dad did, five years ago, and it got him killed. And my mom, _god_ , she was drowning. Lost my dad, almost lost me too, and for what? I don't wanna just sit around moping about the should've, could've, would've's. I wanna do something about it." She reaches across to grab at Booker's flask, earning her Booker's raised eyebrows.

The sound of Nile downing something Nicky thinks is whiskey cuts through the tense silence, and Nicky turns to Booker now, last in what he had termed a "fucked up AA meeting."

Nile returns Booker's flask by the time he catches Nicky gazes.

"I'm--" he starts, interrupting himself to hastily take a swig of his flask, Nile visibly wincing at the action, "I _was_... CSI. Best in the district, or at least that's what they told me. They put me on the Briggs case - there's no way you haven't heard of that, right?"

Booker's regrettably right. Alton Briggs was one of the most powerful men in the city, a strong candidate for a senate race that most people have forgotten about by now, but Nicky remembers his bullshit rhetoric and the nauseating, self-righteous way he'd talk on the news, not unlike Merrick at all, which was fitting, as he was basically a puppet for the family. Then his son had gotten wrapped up in _pretty fucked up shit_ to put it mildly, various witnesses testifying to seeing him in and around the area a graduate student had been found, _dead_. It shadowed Brigg's entire campaign, followed him everywhere he went, was virtually the only talking point for the rest of his run. 

"His, uh...son. Little Briggs Jr....we were closing in on some pretty tight evidence. The nail in the coffin. I was on my way out of the office one night, this guy who looked straight out of _Goodfellas_ backed me into a wall. Said he knew about...about Bridgette, my wife. Knew we were behind on bills because of her chemo. Said it'd all go away, or problems, just like that... if the evidence were to do the same." He shakes his head. "I couldn't do it. Not after what happened to that poor girl."

Nicky nods his understanding, is regretful, in the forty-eight hours he has known this man, that this had to happen to him at all.

"Anyway, it's a big win for the prosecution, and Briggs kissed every chance of ever holding office again goodbye. Two days later, I'm looking for my keys, need to make a drive to pick up some of Bridgette's meds. My son..."

He stops himself for a moment. Nicky observes the way he quite literally seems to swallow his sadness, as he wills himself not to cry in front of this stranger. "Jean-Pierre. He needed to get across town for this date. Wanted to impress her with a car, _my car_. I rolled my eyes but thought, well, that's certainly my boy. So off he went, and I'd ended up taking the bus, which I didn't mind at all. Anything to get out of the house. I loved Bridgette, didn't mind taking care of her even thought she seemed to, and we'd just been at each others throats for months. By the time I get back to the house, I thought a wounded animal had gotten in. Bridgette...she's on the floor, won't tell me what's wrong. Can't seem to form any words. Her phone's just out of reach and there's someone else on the other line, so I picked up, and, uh..."

Booker bites the inside of his cheek. "It was highway patrol. And they were calling to let me know that my son had been in a car, registered under my name, that had swerved off the highway into oncoming traffic. He, and he alone, died instantly. I thought it was pretty apparent that the brakes had been cut, but not so oddly enough it was hard to find enough people to get behind that." 

Booker shrugs ruefully. "Bridgette left not long after. She's in remission. Or at least she was the last time we spoke, I don't really know. She never was able to shake off that it should have been me. I know it should have been me, but Briggs probably thought I'd be better off this way."

"Well," Andy chimes in, and Nicky now notices her hand on Booker's shoulder, "we thought he was better off dangling from his own ceiling." 

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Nicky expresses after taking in the brutality of Andy's words. 

"The only thing we can do now is make sure it doesn't happen to another person," Booker returns. 

Nicky nods his agreement. "I'm, I'm _truly_ sorry for everything that's happened to all of you. And I want thank you for sharing it with me, but..." and what exactly is he going to say to these four strangers, plus the love of his life? _Thanks for getting me looped into your shit but then having the decency to rescue me even though now I've been unwillingly made a part of said shit?_

"I don't know if I can...become this," he word vomits.

As it is, they seem to understand what he's saying. Joe opens his mouth to speak, but Andy gets a word in first.

"Nicky...it's not that simple."

"It's a lot to take in," Booker says, and it does nothing to help, "we understand that." 

"It's not that," Nicky explains. "I mean it is, but I - I've never disagreed with any of this. And if anything, despite what's happened, I understand each and every one of you even more. I just don't know if I'm meant for it."

"It's more than that," Andy explains. "Nobody at this table was meant to have our lives fucked over by the Merricks."

"Andy," Joe says in a warning tone, worriedly looking to Nicky.

"Up til now, the reason you're sitting there is because of luck," Andy continues. "If we'd known who your father was, you have my word Nicky, we would have acted a lot sooner. But now with what's happened? Now that the Merricks know one of their worst enemies has a living, breathing son, and he's possibly alive while their own is rotting in some morgue? You can't go back. You're one of us now." 

"And we'll protect you," Nile affirms. 

Nicky isn't entirely sure what comes next, what to make of this strange feeling that is an impossible amalgamation of sensory overload and the stark realization that Andy is very much correct.

He lifts himself from the table roughly enough to send several plates jolting, and Joe follow suit.

" _No,_ " he says to Joe quickly, "leave it."

"Nicky," Joe calls after him anyways, deep and pained, and he feels all eyes on him again as he exits the safehouse for the solitude of the studio above. 

.

It takes a lot for him not to scream his frustrations, to keep the desperate, resentful tears at bay.

That's what it was, resentment.

It doesn't suit him. He never much liked being bitter and especially tried not to after the whole mess with Julian, his own little way of saying _fuck you, I'll show you happy_ , when Julian would argue that life outside of the two of them was impossible.

There it is again, that creeping comparison, unfair to Joe, even though he _had_ lied like Julian. Even though Joe's alive through some miracle, breathing and beautiful, while Julian, who deserved much worse, is lying cold on some morgue table. How Joe had never meant for his lies to lead to anything that could hurt Nicky, but they somehow inevitably did. How Nicky just seemed to attract this kind of trouble, which somehow proved Andy's point, which was enough confirmation that he was meant for a life like this, right? 

He's resentful, of _Joe_ of all people, and it's a strange cycle of grief, how quickly his anger towards Joe turns to mourning that he feels this aggrieved by him in the first place.

This was a real, honest, double bind. A kobayashi maru in its purest form. His living in ignorance of his father could have only gotten him so far, and it had to take Joe and his perfect hair and his fucking eye dimples for him to gain even a shred of awareness. 

_No,_ he chastises himself. _Don't think like that. Joe lied to you. He failed from your first interaction at the simple, decent notion of being honest._

_But he was also incredibly remorseful._

_He's killed people._

_But those people had deserved much worse._

_And he'd also put everything on the line to get me back._

_He'll continue to protect you._

_And he is going to be inevitable, almost unfairly omnipresent, in this new life._

A large, imposing, punching bag hangs ominously several feet from him, and he drives a fist into it in unparalleled frustration. 

"...Nicolo?"

The quiet voice is enough to jump him out of his thoughts, and he turns to see - 

"James, wasn't it?" Nicky asks.

Copley smiles, shrugs a shoulder. "You can call me Copley."

Nicky nods just to acknowledge that he heard him. He wants nothing more in this moment now than to be alone, and if Copley's here to speak to Andy, Nicky will go out of his way not to take part in it. 

"Are you alright?"

Nicky laughs, and it doesn't sound like himself. "You're kidding, right?"

Copley nods. "I'm...incredibly sorry for what happened. I knew your father. Not personally, but...being in Merrick's circles, it's a little hard not to."

If Copley is trying to make him feel better, he's failed. The thought of one more person seeming to know more about papà that he ever did sends him into a blind rage. And it wasn't comforting to learn from Booker, truly a stranger to him until twenty-four hours ago, that his father had stolen the most prized of Merrick's assets, ruining innumerable deals and getting himself killed in the process. Oh, and that it was to atone for having worked with the Merricks in the first place. Yeah, that was just as hard, if not _harder_ to take in.

"Did you need something?" Nicky asks.

"Oh, yes," Copley says hurriedly. It's then that Nicky notices he's carrying a manila envelope. "I was actually hoping I could speak to you in private. Once I was made aware of what had happened, I made my way around a number of...let's just say memorabilia."

His hand's outstretched now, inches away from Nicky's face, holding out the folder. "When the Merricks found your father, they kept him for days. I won't go into details. But they did find items on him that they thought would prove useful, especially after he had passed."

Nicky takes the envelope. It's thin, almost feels like nothing's in it, but it rests hollow in his hands.

"That there is just a copy," Copley explains. "Steven Merrick's, to be exact. I suspect it's why he seemed to believe you knew more than you were letting on."

Nicky's heart drops as he looks between the envelope and Copley, and he begins to unseal it. 

"If you need anything..." Copley says, but the words are unfinished. There is no point in formality between the two of them anymore. He nods at Nicky once more, and then he is gone, disappearing behind the _Employees Only_ door to speak to Andy, no doubt.

Nicky pulls the paper out, a crisp photocopy of what looked like something ancient. 

_Nico,_ it begins, and Nicky is already pressing white knuckled fingers against his lips, because he'd only ever let one person call him that. 

_You've grown into the very man I always knew you would be. My deepest regret is that others will be witness to your greatness, to your fire. I hope in time, you will come to understand the decisions I have made and why I made them. I do not deserve anything beyond that. I do not deserve your forgiveness, yet all I wish is the chance to ask for it. Since I can't, I will ask that you do what I cannot - or rather, what I tried, and failed to do. I want you to make the right choice. In life, in love. It goes without saying, because from the moment I held you in my arms, I knew you were beautiful, a soul unmatched, something that couldn't have possibly come from me. I know you will choose the right path. The answers will be lined with oak, amore. It will be you and me, just the two of us, as it always has been._

_\- Papà_

_._

Nicky wills himself not to stumble his way back into the basement. He doesn't know how much longer he'd spent in the studio, crying in an unidentifiable mixture of grief, of anger, of complete and total disbelief. 

This isn't his new life; this is a life that was always waiting for him. A life thrusted upon him by not just Joe, not just by Julian, but by his father. Regardless of what Andy had said at dinner, he was _meant_ for this. The only thing left to his control was what to do with it. That...that was somehow salvageable. 

_Oak_. It was meaningless to seemingly everybody but him. Of course it'd spun the Merricks in circles for years. He almost wants to bark out a laugh at how easy it seems to be for him in comparison. 

"Are you okay?" Nile asks, and behind him he feels Quynh's hand cup his elbow in worry. He doesn't remember how or when he'd made it to the living space, but feels all eyes on him. They can't have expected him to be doing anything except venting out his frustrations in a studio with a million punching bags. It was far too convenient.

"Fine," Nicky lies. "I, uh - I think I just need to lie down."

He's in the bedroom door in quick strides, and forgets, _entirely_ , that he'd been sharing the room with Joe, that it's late and that it would make sense for Joe to already be in bed by now.

"Nicolo," Joe says immediately from where he's hunched over by the bed frame, pencil in hand. Nicky catches glimmers of a sketch, of what, of who, he's not sure.

Nicky looks up, but doesn't say anything. He can't even think to form any words, just closes the door gently behind him.

"I'm sorry for what Andy said," Joe says. "She doesn't really have a filter."

Nicky looks at Joe with tired eyes. "You should not apologize for what other people say."

Joe nods quietly.

The bitterness is heavy in Nicky's voice. "It's not like she's wrong."

The weight of the truth of what Andy had said is unbearably heavy. So are papà's words. Cristo, there was no real end to this --

"I want you to know something," Joe says, and turns with enough swiftness to swing his arm in a direction it should not be, and he winces in pain.

Nicky, all instinct, steps forward.

"I'm okay," Joe affirms. "I - I want you to know something," he repeats. 

Nicky licks his lips. "Yes?"

Joe takes a breath. It's pained, and not, Nicky realizes, from his arm. "I spoke to Booker and he said he'd able to make a new set of passports, a driver's license and anything else you'd need in the next couple of days. Next couple of hours, if we light enough of a fire under his ass."

"Joe," Nicky cuts him off, "what do you mean?"

Joe instead continues, "I took what I could from the apartment, but if there's anything else you'd need ....I don't know, maybe Nile or Quynh, the two of them together, could get them for you. We'll drive you wherever you need to go if it's within the country, but if you wanna fly out -"

" _Joe_ ," Nicky says again. "Stop it."

Joe does. Lets his eyes shoot down to the ground in shame for a second before meeting Nicky's eyes again. Nicky _hates_ it, through and through. He will never grow accustomed to how ashamed Joe can be, how defeated, how completely demoralized; even though he knows it's for good reason.

His eyes flicker to the duffle bag on the room's ratty floor. 

"Would it really be that easy to say goodbye to me?" Nicky demands before he can stop himself.

Joe looks debased. " _No,_ Nicky, _of course not_ \- you - you have to know that."

And he does. He knows Joe's pain, can't help but share it. 

"It would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do," Joe says, almost like he's reading Nicky's mind. "It would swallow me whole. It would destroy me to know I'd never see you again." Tears begin to spill. Nicky can't remember when they had started to form. "But it would be what I deserve." 

But...he doesn't. Nicky fails to understand what it is. He knows Joe. Knows that even through all that's happened, he will still continue to be this full of light and life, will still be kind and considerate in a way this city will never deserve. He knows the Joe he fell in love with was Joe at his essence. Knows it's the best in him. Knows that he's one of the few people who could have ever brought it out. He doesn't like imagining a life without the two of them having ever crossed paths, but thoughts are intrusive, and he knows _, in his soul_ , that in that world, Joe would have made the same decisions to protect the city, to do it in Soumaya's memory. Knows that Joe is a good person. Knows it's unquestionable. 

It does not stop Nicky at all from snapping, "don't tell me what you deserve, Joe. Not - not after what they did to you. What they did to me." 

Joe regards that for a moment, his face twisted into something anguished. "Nicky --"

"I -" Nicky interrupts. Stops for a minute to ground himself. He does not want Joe to see him shake, and more than that, he cannot have this conversation right now, not when he had a decision to make. "I think I'll sleep on the couch tonight." 

It shatters Joe's heart. He can tell by the look in his eyes. And Nicky's not proud of it, absolutely hates the idea of hurting Joe even with all they've been through.

"Please don't," Joe pleads, and Nicky is ready to push back, but Joe continues, "take the bed - I - _I'll_ sleep on the couch-"

"No," Nicky denies. "It won't be good for your arm."

Joe doesn't argue. Just watches in silence as Nicky leaves the room, completely unaware of the thoughts racing through his mind. 

.

It's quiet, and Nicky can't altogether tell if it's morning. The basement, or safehouse as the team seemed to call it, is perplexing that way. The way the team seemed to only prefer dim lighting kept him in an endless cycle of believing it was dinnertime. But when his phone reads _7:32 am_ , he sarcastically thinks to himself that things must be returning to normal if he's waking up at his usual time.

He seems to be the only one awake, so it makes sense to start a pot of coffee for everyone. Except the unmistakable grind of the coffee machine fills the room, and in his haze he realizes it's what had woken him up in the first place.

He sits up, quietly enough to observe Joe in the kitchen area without alerting him, struggling to fit a coffee filter into the pot with a single hand.

"Joe?" Nicky asks quietly, though he knows it's him.

"Nicky," Joe says, turning his attention away from the machine altogether. It's odd, seeing him this flustered, this uncoordinated, the very opposite of the suave, charismatic man Nicky had been nervous around just a year ago. "I'm - I'm sorry, _tesoro,_ did I wake you?"

Nicky smiles at this small bit of role reversal. He has to find humor in the mundane to keep him sane at this point. Joe being up this early could have only mean one thing: he couldn't fall asleep. "No, of course you didn't."

He lifts himself from the couch, and in a few strides, he's by the Joe's side on the kitchen counter. 

"Yusuf Al-Kaysani," he says suddenly, crowding into Joe's space, reveling in the way their bodies seem to fit together for a moment before fixing up the coffee machine.

Joe reacts like Nicky had done so much more than just simply say his name. But it's incredibly foreign to him by now, Nicky understands that.

"Yes?" Joe asks. His lips are parted.

Nicky shrugs. "Nothing. It's...it's just a beautiful name."

It's quiet again as Nicky prepares Joe's coffee in way that is routine to him. A dash of creamer, two teaspoons of sugar. Suddenly, and in spite of the horrors inflicted upon him, Nicky recognizes that he distantly misses their apartment.

"Did you think anymore about what I said?" Joe gently prods suddenly, and Nicky can feel him watching him.

Nicky nods his head slowly in place of shaking away the thought of leaving Joe, of leaving all of them. It was considerate of them to help build him a new life. But it was wholly unnecessary. Leaving was just out of the question. "I did."

"And?" Joe asks, almost like he'd been daring himself.

Nicky scoffs, not cruelly, just is overwhelmed with the emotions ripping through his mind, his body. He slides the cup of coffee towards Joe's direction. Joe doesn't take it in hand. He was never one to stomach anything while this on edge. It was a rare occurrence, but it did happen once or twice, a gala where somebody from Joe's college textbook would inevitably show up, and he'd needed Nicky to relax him, loosen him up in more ways than one. 

"I love you," Nicky admits quickly, just to rip off the bandaid, almost atoning for the strange way he had left things with Joe last night. It does enough. It does more than enough. Nicky sees something flood back into Joe's entire being, something beyond relief. Almost like he's whole again. 

"I mean, I... I _love you,_ and isn't that the most fucked up part about all of this?"

Nicky doesn't expect Joe to say anything to that. He doesn't even know _he'd_ respond. "But part of loving is just trusting, like it's an instinct. And I just don't know if I can ever love you that same way again," he says next. He's surprised at the clarity of his words. The past few days have been anything but that, clear; his future, even his _past_. But he knows he means this. He knows its the only way either of them will be able to move forward. "Maybe we'll get there. Maybe we won't. All I know is that I'm willing to wait. And when it's time, I'm willing to try. And I feel like you are too." 

"I'd be willing to do a lot more," Joe affirms. His voice is shaking, but the conviction is unmistakable. "I'll wait lifetimes. I'll always be here for you to return to, if you choose to have me again. I...I _love you_ , Nicky, _unspeakably -_ for you alone to just be able to look at me... _tesoro_ , I do not deserve you."

Nicky shakes his head. A tear hits the floor. "It's not about deserving," he says quietly. He doesn't elaborate. That was the thing between him and Joe. How the silence seemed to speak louder than words at times. 

And Joe understands.

.

Breakfast later that morning - or brunch, more accurately - is a significant improvement of last night's dinner.

Nicky, never one for thick pancakes, ends up making crepes. Quynh smiles at the familiarity of it all. That was perhaps another thing to be salvaged from all this. That aside from Joe, if Nicky could pick anybody else to help him through any of this, she was sitting right next to him. 

"This is delicious," Nile commends. "Thank you, Nicky."

Nicky smiles from here he's sat across Joe. "Of course." 

Joe watches him as he takes a sip of coffee. Nicky revels in it, will always love the feeling of Joe's eyes on him. When Joe returns to his crepe (precut of course) Nicky finally finds it in himself to speak.

"I...I actually wanted to say something."

"Can I go first?" Andy asks from where she's scooping up more nutella than she needs. 

"If you're going to apologize for last night," Nicky says, "then no."

Andy's lip unmistakably twitches upwards. "The floor is yours."

Nicky nods. "I'm about to launch into an anecdote, but I swear I have a point." 

Then he says, "when I was a kid, we moved into this house that I _hated_." his eyes shift to Joe. He knows this story, he's heard it before. Nicky never thought he'd ever had to repeat it under these circumstances. "I know it sounds stupid, but I just felt like it didn't have a soul. It didn't matter how much my dad tried to renovate, I just _hated_ it. My mom and I never really got along about most things and the house just made everything worse. She thought I was being entitled and bratty, which I understand - but she couldn't wrap her head around why I'd just prefer to spend most of my time outside. The yard was it's only redeeming quality. It was nice and quiet, and it stretched out all the way to this lake in the middle of the neighborhood. In the middle of the path was this big old oak tree. The doors to the yard, they were glass - so I'd always stare at it when we'd be sat at the dinner table."

He winces at the next memory. 

"Anyway, one day I broke my nonna's vase. My mom walked in on me trying to superglue it back together, but the damage was done. She smacked me well into the next century. More than once. Kept going, even while she heard me begging to stop and...I don't know, that did it. Made me realize we'd never understand each other, and that made me livid, so I ran out, all the way down, didn't look back. She had to send papà after me. He came down, and we just sat there awhile, by the oak. And he told me that this could be a hiding spot. That the oak could eternally be ours. That it will belong to just the two of us, always. And it was. It was the last place I saw him before he..."

They knew the rest. It was impossible at this point for them not to.

Nicky pulls out the copy from last night where its folded in his pocket. "When Copley swung by last night, he gave me this...note they'd found off of papà. It must have been after they killed him. He must have been trying to get it to me - I don't know, but I think Merrick thought it would be helpful. Especially after they brought me in." He unravels it. "He doesn't say anything about any painting. I don't know if any of you can read Italian, but...over here? He says he wants me to make the right choice, to do what he failed to do, and that the answers are...lined with oak." 

Nicky can't tell, not exactly, if the gears are turning in their brains or if he should have just cut to the chase instead of oversharing his tragic childhood -

"So," Booker is the first to speak, "you're saying...all the shit your dad stole from Obdendorf, and by extension, _the Merricks --_ "

"That he left you, _what,_ a clue -" Nile continues.

"--to where it could be?" Quynh finishes.

Nicky nods, unsure of how to feel. 

"I...I don't know. Maybe. _Probably_. It was something only the two of us knew about. I know he would have ever told the Merricks. And I just...I know what the Merricks are capable of now. And I know about what you've done, what you've _sacrificed_ to put an end to it. And when I have something like this on hand...I can't just stand by. It would be wrong to. It has to mean something, right? It has to mean we have the upper hand," he interrupts himself to look between all of them, "right?"

"Holy _shit_ , kid," Andy exclaims in disbelief, and that just seems to confirm all of it. 

He looks to Joe, just by instinct, and there is something in Joe's eyes that...well, Nicky can't tell exactly what it is. He doesn't know if there's a word for it. But that was just something between them, untranslatable looks, ways of understanding each other that were near telepathic. Nicky knows, in his bones, that there is something in the way Joe looks at him that resembles warmth and something that looks a little like pride. Love, in its truest and purest form. 

Nicky's next words surprisingly come naturally. With his eyes locked with Joe's, he asks, "when do we start?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up next: more healing. celebratory smut. not even gonna lie lol. i need to end this on a happy note and let it live up to it's E rating ;)
> 
> THANKS FOR READING!!! and sorry again for the wait!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooooooo, HIIIIIII!
> 
> and a belated happy new year!
> 
> here it is, once again, the quintessential apology for taking this long to come back to this! A lot has happened (including and not limited to - I got a new job! woop woop), but i've wanted to wrap up this story for the longest time, and I'm so happy I finally found the time to do so. 
> 
> so here's your warning that this chapter is LOOOOOONG. longer than any other previous chapters, but hey, think of it as the fic equivalent to a 2hr season finale! I didn't wanna divy it up for you guys because i didn't think it'd be that cohesive that way - so please excuse the length LMAO. I almost impressive myself with the amount of plot I came up with just as an excuse for them to do the nasty.
> 
> warnings for this chapter: violence, past talk of abuse, smut towards the later half of this chapter (and it's much more graphic than previous chapters)
> 
> again i don't have a clear, definitive idea of how mafias/the underground art trade works. this is 100% to steer the plot towards happier times and smut. *bernie sanders voice* I am Once Again Asking You to Suspend Disbelief 
> 
> ok that's all! read on, and pls enjoy, the (long overdue) final chapter!

Joe stares at the board in ire. Between managing the gala, Nicky, the team, Merrick, all of it - he fails to remember the last time he'd ever had this much time to prioritize his art, and it shows. If Nicky were here he'd chastise him, tell him his drawings were nothing he could grow out of because it was just as much a part of his personality as anything else. And if things had turned out a little differently, they'd be in the little art studio Nicky would always push him towards purchasing, promising that moving into a smaller apartment was worth Joe finally having enough time to devote himself entirely to his craft.

But Nicky's not here, at least not not physically - instead he stares at Joe through charcoal and ink, and Joe stares back, picturing the color of sea foam in place of actually filling Nicky's eyes in at all. Between the absence of color and details of the memory he'd deliberately changed, this was perfect middle ground for him to look back fondly on a simpler time without spiraling completely about how he'd managed to fuck things up this much with Nicky, this bad, almost impressively. 

They were able to track Valerio's trail in a resounding success that could partly be attributed to Copley's fine research skills, but it'd taken short of six months, and while Joe was silently impressed with Valerio's devotion to the cause, he was equally dismayed and exhausted running around and finding clues like they were all in _Scooby Doo_. 

It'd also forced Nicky into reopening old wounds, into throwing himself down a rabbit hole of his father's secret life. It was far from easy, having to learn about his father's tenure as one of the Merricks' lapdogs, but he'd used everything he'd learned as all the more reason to be on the team. To right his father's wrongs, to use the resources he had to do the most he could. It was, and will always be, the most glaring reason why Joe is in love with him.

Not that he'd tell him - he'd promised Nicky as much time as he needed and more to figure out where their relationship stood. But Joe is damn near incapable of bottling his feelings as easily as it seems to be for Nicky. He can't help the way he naturally gravitates towards Nicky during their endeavors before Andy even announce who would pair with who. The way he watches from the corner to make sure Andy's taking things easy during their jiujitsu sessions, to double check to make sure Nicky has his safety on when Booker trains him in guns and charges.

And Nicky isn't exempt either - practically nursing Joe's arm even though Nile is the trained medic between the six of them, finding ways of asking what he wants for dinner without directly asking what he wants for dinner, once or twice actively stopping himself from physically reaching for Joe whenever the team's under any kind of duress. 

During this strange adjustment period that Joe reminds himself was _never_ supposed to happen, Andy had been quick to suggest something of a buddy system, which was all well and good by Joe's account, because it was clearly to keep an eye on Nicky. So Nicky agreed to move in with Quynh for the time being, Joe was with Booker, and Andy with Nile.

Which meant packing up the rest of his shit and moving out of his and Nicky's shared apartment, which was bound to happen either way. Nicky clearly hated even being in the goddamn building, incapable of being reminded of anything else other than being dragged out by Merrick's goons and the far from quiet exchange he'd had with Joe that preceded it.

Which left Joe with the task of telling widowed Ms. Grange from next door that things hadn't worked out between him and Nicky, something _far_ from a lie. She'd taken it notably worse than Peter, the single dad of twin girls who Nicky would babysit from time to time. In the back of his head Joe bitterly thought to himself, _imagine how I must feel_.

Which led to this, three weeks now since Joe had seen Nicky at all, _almost a month,_ he struggled to remind himself. Andy had put him and Booker on a small ring uptown that didn't have any known affiliations, making their job all the more easier - still, it was grueling and took much longer than they'd anticipated, and in the week following the bust Joe didn't want to leave Booker's place for as long as he could afford to. Which meant texting Nicky regularly to check up on him, Nicky responding sparingly before stopping altogether - leaving Joe with nothing but his charcoal, his ink, and a blank canvas to drown his sorrows.

"Joe," Booker calls from the apartment's loft, "you hungry?" 

"Yeah, okay," Joe says back, taking a step back to observe his recreation of one of their many quiet summer nights where Nicky had smiled, only slightly, in a way that had made Joe fall in love with him all over again. He's staring at it critical in a way like it's about to be on display, which is ridiculous, because Joe covers the board up whenever he hears Booker's footsteps anywhere near his room. Does it again hurriedly when Booker knocks twice on his door.

"Book, goddamnit, I said I'd be right out," he curses.

"Maybe some of us are a little hungrier than others," Booker shrugs when Joe's done covering up the board, closing the door behind him to step into the loft, then the kitchen, where Booker's in the middle of managing a gluttonous amount of takeout boxes.

"What's for dinner?" Joe asks instead, at the same time the unmistakable smell of pad thai fills the room.

"Oh, just some Thai food I'm definitely not transferring from the takeout box," Booker quips.

Joe laughs, rubs a hand down his face as he seats himself. "How's Bridgette?" he asks, because he knows why Booker's been gone most of the day.

"She's responding to treatment," Booker says diplomatically, "so, good."

"Good," Joe echoes.

Booker finishes pouring them two much needed glasses of wine before sitting himself down too. "Heard from Nile?"

"Yeah," Joe admits, but in all honesty, the thought had been entirely absent until now. "Something about a new lead?"

Booker nods as he takes a swig of the wine. "Yes," he says cautiously. Then, "nothing we haven't dealt with before. I'm sure the girls will have all the details later tonight. Which means we're all due at the safehouse later."

All of a sudden, and completely out of nowhere, Joe feels like he is falling through the floor. "Oh? _"_

Booker shrugs like Joe should have heard him the first time, but there is an unmistakable flash of guilt in his eyes. "So, you know, Nicky will be there."

Joe blinks at him. "And when were you going to tell me that?"

"When it would be relevant."

"Which it clearly fucking is."

" _Arrête_ , Yusuf," Booker sighs, not at all a good sign, because he only says Joe's name when he's exasperated, only speaks in French when English can't convey his frustration. "I'm sorry," he reasons, "I just - of all things, I never struck you as the type who wouldn't be able to work around an ex -"

Joe actually balks before he shakes his head in equal frustration. "Nicky is _not_ an ex."

"Perfect, so you worked things out," Booker reasons, "then it shouldn't be awkward -"

"No - I mean -" and Joe is at a loss for words, and finds that Nicky was right to say it's completely unlike him to be out of words - "we're just.... _adjusting_."

Booker's raised eyebrows are an indication of how utterly stupid it all sounds. And Joe agrees, wholeheartedly - by all accounts, Nicky was currently an ex and this was all simply a ....resting period. A way for Nicky to adjust to this new lifestyle, and Joe had promised him nothing but his intention to wait, to be there when Nicky would finally be ready to jump back into their relationship, to start to build a new foundation of trust.

But these past six months have been nothing but a torment. A seed of doubt, nestled in the back of his head, threatened to become much more. A nagging voice tells him to entertain a future where he will have to learn to love Nicky as nothing more than a friend, as a member of the team. And that leads to another voice telling him six months is plenty of time to have met someone new, for Nicky to have moved on - even though the team regularly met for recon and he'd be able to tell from their friendly exchanges if Nicky was seeing someone else entirely.

And then he berates himself for thinking this far ahead in the first place, for acting so put out at the thought of Nicky being over him - he doesn't _own_ Nicky. And moreover, he lied, and if Nicky is unable to find it in himself to love Joe again after _all this_ , it's Nicky's business. That Nicky would even give him the time of day is nothing short of a fucking miracle. 

Booker nods his head once. "Uh-huh."

" _Fuck_ ," Joe says, completely out of his control, this way of acting like a short-tempered teenager in the middle of a break-up, like Booker is playing the overzealous mother struggling to help.

"You want some advice?" Booker asks, like he's read Joe's mind.

"Not particularly," Joe says. 

"Too bad," Booker continues, "because listen. You're capable of getting over this. I know you are. Moving on...it's just our line of work." 

Joe tries, and fails, not to react to that sentiment.

"But I know you won't," Booker prattles on. "Because this is Nicky we're talking about here. You hardly talk about him at all, which has to mean he's the love of your life. You stare at him like the goddamned sun, and I don't mean that in the way you think - I mean that I watch you look at him long enough that puts you in physical pain. And in case you're curious, he looks at you the same way, too. So. _Figure it out."_

"You only get this articulate when you're drunk," Joe points out, "which is making me question the percentage of that wine -"

"I'm being serious," Booker shakes off the joke. "You deserve a lot better than this, Joe. And - and Nicky does, too."

Joe crosses his arms. "Well, it's not like I'm not trying." 

Booker snaps his bamboo chopsticks into two pieces. "Okay, well. Good. Because Nile and I've been taking bets, and you know that I'm a sore loser."

.

When Booker and Joe step into the safehouse, Andy's voice beckons them in with a teasing, "well, look who finally decided to grace us with their presence."

Joe rolls his eyes in Andy's direction, hanging up his coat to offer a quick greeting to Nile, who is actively going over blueprints, to Quynh, who seems to be in the middle of cleaning some of their spare guns, to Nicky.

He's wearing one of his ridiculous scarves - a checkered fleece that's more blanket than it is scarf, really - and it fills Joe with mourning for a stupid reason, it reminds him of time and how much of it has passed since...well. Since the Merrick bust, since Nicky'd found out about him, since he'd equally found out about Nicky and his father.

And how warm summer nights laughing into Nicky's neck were now last minute basement recons, and in weather fittingly cold and miserable. 

"Joe," Nicky says, in place of a greeting, and Joe takes it, the alternative being a distant nod of the head that he doesn't think he'd be able to bear.

And Nicky, unless Joe's eyes are playing particularly cruel tricks on him...he looks like the last two weeks have been nothing but kind. The beginnings of a beard are unmistakable. His hair has grown a little longer too, only slightly, mismatching Joe, who's been wearing his hair cropped for the past month. He looks like he hasn't missed a night of sleep.

"Nicky," Joe responds, offering up a genuine smile that Nicky returns, but that's that. They allow their gazes to linger a moment longer before redirecting their attention to Andy, and Joe surpasses a deep and primal urge to roll his eyes when he finds that Andy, and all of them in fact, had been watching their interaction cautiously. 

"You interrupted a perfectly good dinner," Booker breaks the ice, "so this better be good." 

"Oh, _it is_ ," Nile chimes in.

Booker somehow looks doubtful. "We got a name?"

"Stefano," Andy says. "Stefano Balducci."

Joe can feel his face contort. "Wait - _Balducci -_ as in - ?"

Andy nods, "as in _the_ Balduccis, yes. You'll remember his brother, Pietro."

He'd have to be an amnesiac not to. Pietro was - to put in relatively crude terms - a bit sloppier compared to other jobs. He'd gone missing in official terms, and the Merricks and Lebedevs had pinned it on each other when the Balduccis started pointing fingers. From Joe's standpoint it was ideal, the way they were doing his job for him.

What they hadn't known is that Nile had gotten deep enough into an op trying to figure out where Balducci was keeping his girls and that Joe had shot Pietro, point blank in the head, killing him instantly, and he hadn't necessarily stopped after that. He hadn't thought twice about it, either. The second he saw the bastard with his hands around Nile's throat, realizing his circle wasn't as impregnable as he'd thought, Joe took matters into his own hands, having to be practically dragged away from Pietro's limp body. 

Ah, _yes,_ Joe doesn't say, _that Pietro Balducci._

"Stefano's never been one for resting periods," Andy continues. "But he _is_ one for dick-measuring contests. So this'd be a perfect opportunity for him."

"For what, exactly?" Joe asks. "Didn't he learn anything from his shitstain brother?"

"Somewhat," says Quynh. "Which is thankfully why he's not dealing girls anymore."

A sinking feeling of deja vu nestles its way into Joe's stomach.

"You're kidding me," Booker says, "again with this?" 

"Does he have cable?" Nile asks, and it takes Joe a while to realize she is being sarcastic. "A WiFi connection, maybe? Doesn't he think that, I don't know, maybe _now_ isn't the right time to go around dealing when every museum in the city is effectively on lockdown and the biggest name in underground trade was found dead in his own mansion?" 

Offhandedly, Joe catches a wink Quynh throws in his direction.

"Did you miss the part where I said he loves dick measuring?" Andy interrupts. "I don't think he cares about what happened to Merrick. If anything, it's probably made him more excited, the sick fuck."

"It makes sense," Booker interjects. "The Balduccis are one of the only families who don't kiss the ground the Merricks walk on. And Copley's all but confirmed that any talks between the Merricks and Lebedev are dead. Balducci's probably got his nose pressed up against glass waiting for the perfect moment."

"Which is now," Andy says. "And we do what we always do. We strike while the iron is hot."

"But how, exactly?" Joe wonders aloud. It wasn't that he was pass the deception, the lying through his teeth, the kissing ass - nothing made it easier, but the fact that Nicky now knew about his line of work made it bearable - but past that, it was far too big a risk, and there was no telling wether or not Stefano would even know who Joe was. 

That's when Nicky decides to speak, for the first time since greeting Joe when he'd come in with Booker. "Well, that's the simple part. Through me." 

His eyes tear away to Nicky, who is already saying, "Joe -"

" _Absolutely_ not," Joe snaps, not at Nicky in particular, and he observes the way Nicky's expression shift to anger in moments. He ignores it to say to Andy, "I've agreed to everything else, Andy, but _this -"_

"It was my decision," Nicky interjects, voice unwavering.

"That I happened to disagree with, too," Quynh chimes in, "just wanted to throw that out there."

It does nothing to quell Joe's rising panic. "Nicky -"

"I know Stefano," Nicky says, and Joe blanks. "Well, not exactly. My father did, and he'd bring him 'round the house sometimes for meetings in his...his _study_ , and my mother always made sure I'd never be around at least when Stefano was, but ... I know him, and he knows me. He remembers me. Which is just as well, because he hates Merrick's guts, and I'm supposed to, too. I mean I _do,"_ he quickly corrects. "But for reasons Stefano's not entirely clear on. By all means, he thinks we're on the same page."

And the thing is...it makes sense. Fuck, it makes _perfect_ sense. It'd be stupid not to send Nicky in. But even then, Joe shakes his head in disapproval. "I - _no_. It's too big a risk. I won't have you be in a room with that lunatic -"

"It's his choice, Joe," Andy interjects quietly.

Before Joe can instead argue with Andy, Nicky says, "can we have a moment?"

They all nod their approval, and Nicky beckons Joe to follow him with a jerk of his head, moving towards the small bedroom of the safehouse they had shared months ago.

"Nicky, you have to understand," Joe says as soon as the door shuts. "I don't - I don't want to see you get hurt."

"And you won't," Nicky promises, even though he's really not in a position to. "Andy I talked it through, and -"

" _Andy and you?_ " Joe says suddenly, and he's fuming, because of course, it all makes perfect fucking sense now, how Nicky hadn't been all too present in the last two weeks, how Andy's reassigned Booker and Joe to something unrelated entirely so she and Nicky would have all the time to plan an op like this without Joe's doubts casting an unneeded shadow. It stung, rightfully so, to be this kept in the dark. And he'd be a hypocrite to even be angry about any of it.

But he is and can't quite help it, because what does Nicky truly want him to do in all this?

"Yes," Nicky says. "It's - it's what we've been on since you and Booker have been on that ring uptown - I'm sorry, I - I didn't want to lie to you."

"So you just didn't tell me about any of it?" Joe says, and he can't help the accusatory tone of voice. 

Knowing Nicky, he is incensed - but he looks like he's visibly shoving it away as he says, "you never would have agreed to this otherwise -"

"Of course I wouldn't," Joe interrupts. "Nicky, look, you're - "

"What? Inexperienced? New to all this?" Nicky spits. "I'm also the only person out of all of us that Stefano will let into his estate."

"That's not the _point_ ," Joe says, patience wearing dangerously thin, "I don't care if he changed your fucking _diapers_ , he's a monster, and if anything happens -"

"If we don't do it," Nicky interrupts, "if we don't do it, and he signs this - this death warrant with Lebedev, and the city falls into more shit than it's already in, then what? What will you say, that it all would have been worth it because you were too scared for me to be in the same room as him?"

 _Oh that's entirely fucking unfair_. Not necessarily what Nicky is saying, because he's unbearably right - just the state of things, the hand they’re currently being dealt.

"You drag me into this...this life...and Joe, I am _past_ talking about how you never meant for it to happen - because it's happening, _okay?_ " Nicky says. "And I am making the most of it, believe me, I am doing my best with what I have. I know you wanted to protect me, I know being able to filter what I did and didn't know made you feel like I was safe, but it did the opposite. _Okay?_ And if it's not ideal for you, then just imagine what it must be like for me."

That hurts in a way Joe is sure Nicky hadn't intended - and even still, it was the truth, and far be it for Joe to be angry at anyone other than himself for the reality of the situation. 

"If anything happens," Joe says, then stops himself. Collects a breath, and starts again, "if anything happens to you...I'd _never_ be able to forgive myself."

Nicky takes a step forward. His fingers are digging into his palms, like he's trying to ground himself, to stop himself from reaching out to Joe in any kind of way. "I know. I know you'll do anything to keep me safe. _That's_ how I know we'll be able to do this."

.

The plan is simple enough that Joe can agree to it, albeit begrudgingly. He throws looks in all their directions, sulks in the corner while simultaneously listening intently to the way Andy lays the plan out: Nicky's arranged to meet Stefano at his estate a couple of miles outside the city. He'll allow him to appraise a Goya, part of Valerio's collection that was now technically Nicky's, chat him up well enough that Stefano shows him other works and reveals just enough about his intentions with the Lebedevs. Nothing the rest of them haven't done at least once. 

What's more, the rest of them will be watching and waiting inconspicuously from a safe distance, Booker ready at the wheel of an unmarked van should any of this go to shit - which, as far as Joe's paranoia was concerned, was far from impossible. 

If Nicky's nervous, he's doing a good job of hiding it. He's dressed to the nines, wearing one of the three pieces he only ever used to during Joe's galas, and he's not looking at Joe as Booker fits in his tiny little body cam, but Joe is sure he can at least feel the weight of Joe's gaze.

Andy runs over the plan one more time before Nicky is due at Stefano's. 

Nicky moves towards Joe, clearly with nothing in mind to say. 

Joe fills in the gaps, reaching forward to fix Nicky's tie, which by all means is already perfect the way it is. "You can do this," Joe says in place of reminding him he can still back out.

Nicky doesn't smile, because nothing about this situation is ideal. "Thanks."

And that's the last thing he says before he's off, Booker and the rest of them training behind inconspicuously as Nicky drives up to Stefano's estate, closer to the city that Merrick's and smaller by comparison, to Joe's relief.

When Nicky walks in, Joe is quick to count about a half dozen other men, one in a gray suit who walks towards Nicky with hurried steps. 

"Little mouse," Stefano says, and Joe is left to assume that it's an old nickname, "my, my."

"You promised you'd stop calling me that," Nicky says exasperatedly. 

"I didn't promise anything," Stefano argues, "and you're lucky it's not Nicky Mouse anymore."

"Stefano," Nicky says, convincing enough, " _che pierce verderti."_

And that's the last Italian spoken between the two of them, because Stefano is third generation and prefers to conduct business meetings in English. Joe is silently grateful. So much about the all this already has him on pins and needles, and being able to understand what Nicky is saying gives him a morsel of leverage. Still, the faster he can get Nicky out of this room, the better. 

Stefano tells Nicky of his budding empire, dropping hints to potential locations that Joe sees Booker furiously corroborating on his laptop from the corner of his eye. The conversation takes a turn for the more informal, and Stefano begins speaking of Valerio in true admiration, recalling memories that Nicky has no trouble remembering, detailing that Valerio's death was a nail in the coffin, that the Merricks paid with Steven's life.

"...and then I saw the news," Stefano says, a little too enthusiastic in Joe's opinion, like he'd been waiting all evening to reach this inevitable part of the conversation. "Youngest Merrick's found with a bullet to the head. And Julian Keane, the goddamn weasel." Stefano pauses, looks Nicky up and down. "Tell me it's not true, Nicolo."

"What?" Nicky says inconspicuously.

Stefano makes a face of faux annoyance, like Nicky is supposed to know what he's talking about. "Oh, nothing. Just that you happened upon the police lieutenant's bed and gave it to him so good he led you straight to Merrick."

And that...it makes Joe's skin crawl, how Keane can be regarded as anything other than the abusive pig he was, that _Nicky_ was viewed as the deceiver in all this. 

"He was useful," Nicky says with practiced ease. "And then he became a liability. And then he got in the way."

"So the rumors are true, then?" Stefano prods.

Nicky must throw Stefano a look in return, because Stefano lifts both his eyebrows at that, and it is undeniable he is impressed. _"Cristo,_ Nicky. It's certainly not Valerio's style."

"No," Nicky agrees. "That's what got him killed."

Stefano rubs at his chin, forefingers scratching at his beard in clear dismay. "But my question has to be, why now? Valerio...he has been gone for thirteen years. I thought you and Marta would be in Italy by now." 

"We did go back," Nicky confirms. "But I've always had an affinity for the city, cesspool that it is. Couldn't have been better timing too, because papà...he had left behind an explanation for everything, among... other things. And I was able to piece together what the Merricks had done to him."

Stefano tenses at that. Through Nicky, even Joe knew that he and Valerio were close.

"I know you loved him like a brother," Nicky says, "and so I will spare you the details."

Stefano regards that. "It doesn't suit you, you know."

"What?" Nicky asks.

Stefano smirks, ever so slightly. "Vengeance." 

At that, Nicky scoffs. "I'm not thirteen years old anymore, Stefano."

Stefano shakes his head, regards him once more. "No, you are not."

Nicky chuckles. "I'm glad we can agree on one thing."

Stefano smiles, a little too widely. "I apologize. I know you came all the way up here to talk business, and I've spent a large portion of the evening reflecting on our past. You'll have to forgive me, Nico - it has been fourteen years." 

"And I won't blame you, either. They were better times," Nicky says. 

"They were," Stefano agrees. He looks entirely too contemplative. "I'd live in it if I could, you know. The past. Me and Valerio in his studio, mouths watering from the heaven that was your mamma's cooking. You'd always be outside, reading one of your books by that big, stupid oak."

"Well on that front, I suppose I can tell you not much has changed." 

"Oh?" Stefano inquires. "I'd heard differently."

For fuck's sake, if Stefano does nothing in the next hour to speed any of this up, Joe will march into his house and drag Nicky out himself -

"Won't you follow me?" Stefano says suddenly. "Let me take you into the room where I conduct my....business."

"Andy," Joe says in warning, and she says nothing in response, eyes glued to the feed of Nicky's cam, but Joe can tell that even she's a bundle of nerves right now. 

Stefano leads Nicky into a room not unlike Merrick's gallery, though it's nowhere near in size, and only seems to house -

" _Caravaggio_ ," Nicky says, just as the wheels begin to turn in Joe's brain. "Must be...late sixteenth century, no?"

"Right on the money," Stefano commends. Joe takes in the painting once more, is able to tell it's some sort of nativity scene. 

"Perhaps one of the most sought after works of Christian art," Stefano continues. "I am a man _truly_ blessed, Nico, I will tell you that much. But still, I must say...it is no _Just Judges."_

And then Stefano pulls out a pistol, aims it at Nicky so perfectly Joe is able to stare helplessly into the barrel through the feed.

Joe immediately rises from where he'd been kneeling next to Quynh, watching her feed of Nicky's cam, heart beating out of his chest. He knew this plan was shit from the ground up, knew Stefano wasn't to be trusted -

" _Fuck_ ," Andy hisses, and Nile and Quynh mirror her next few movements, tightening their bulletproof vests as Joe double checks his cartridges. 

Particularly new to this as Nicky is, he doesn't panic in the way Stefano probably expects. The feed indicates his breathing is regular, his posture near perfect for having a gun waved in his face. As Joe pours out of the van, he wonders if it's because Nicky knows Stefano won't just kill him point blank.

"This is what you meant by living in the past?" Nicky spits. He's swaying now slightly with the strain of holding his hands in the air. "Killing the son of your best friend?"

"Oh, Nico, you misjudge me," Stefano says. "I don't wish to kill you." But he does nothing to live up to the statement and refuses to lower the gun.

"Then I'd appreciate it if you'd just cut the shit," Nicky says. 

"Only if you will," Stefano returns. "Keane and Merrick trusted you, and look where that got them. Do you take me as that big of a fool, Nico?"

"If we're cutting the shit, then I suppose it's important for you to know that I didn't kill them," Nicky admits, realizing the jig is very much up, but Stefano seems to ignore him.

"Lebedev was generous in his offer, I must admit," Stefano says. "But to hand over the man who murdered their youngest son? The Merricks would be indebted to me and my family forever." 

"Ah," Nicky says, "so you're in the pockets of the enemy." 

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," Stefano shrugs. 

Nicky pauses and considers that. "I didn't kill them," he repeats. "I wish I had. Believe me, for what they did to papà and for what they did to me, I wish I'd been the one to end their pathetic lives."

Stefano cocks the gun. "No? Then who did?"

Nicky doesn't hesitate. "You'll meet him quite soon."

Joe can feel his heart thrumming through every vein in his body, feels strangely lightheaded despite having done this old song and dance before. Andy gives the signal, and Joe, Quynh, Nile and Andy make their way through the main entrance startlingly easy. Either Stefano hadn't expected this of Nicky or is just as stupid and incompetent as Pietro - either way, Joe takes it for the blessing he is, massacring his way through the mansion without a second thought. 

"You shame Valerio," Stefano tsks. 

Nicky shakes his head, a sure thing. "No," he argues.

"You do," Nicky says, and the rest of them spill into the room, and in the millisecond of Stefano's disarray, Nicky disarms him in a move resembling Andy far more than Joe would like to admit. A wayward bullet flies towards the ceiling, sending the chandelier crashing down. The ensuing haze of gunfire and flying debris gives Joe the chance to shoot two of Stefano's goons.

And then a third one he hadn't accounted for comes at Joe, tackling him to ground unceremoniously, and Joe's gun goes flying. No matter, Joe thinks, as he expertly flips them, wrestles the man to the ground, arm twisted behind his back, bringing down his skull and painting the marble floor beneath them with his blood.

He is quick to make out Quynh's figure wrestling with another one of the men, Andy and Nile not far behind.

But Nicky - he is lost to Joe in all this, and as admittedly the least experienced out of all of them, it gives Joe all reason to panic. He thinks he hears himself shout Nicky's name above all the gunfire, he can't be sure. The unpreparedness of the situation has made him sick with nausea, angry at himself for agreeing to any of this in the first place -

then suddenly, the barrel of a gun emerges from the corner of his eye, and he turns, unarmed, to where Stefano has his gun trained on him from a distance far too risky for him to pull any kind of stunt. Shit, if Quynh was a little less occupied - if Andy or Nile could see beyond the wreckage of the stupidly big chandelier, maybe he'd have a shot. 

Stefano doesn't even have the time to speak, because a dark wet spot is forming, quickly, against the pristine white of his three piece.

And then he is on the floor, unmistakably lifeless, Nicky's arms still outstretched from where he's just shot Stefano clean through the back. 

.

The ride back to the safehouse is quick and quiet and it shouldn't be. Stefano is dead, which admittedly wasn't the plan, but it was definitely a perk to have another one of the city's innumerable crime lords in the ground. Even if Nicky had been the one to the deed. Even if it wasn't just the first person he'd ever killed, but also a man he knew from childhood.

The air is thick with something ambiguous, something that doesn't belong in the safehouse. Andy says a few words between them before she disappears into her room, Quynh trailing silently behind. 

Nicky doesn't say anything at all. He doesn't even look in Joe's direction. 

So Joe doesn't push. He just spills into the spare room to let exhaustion overtake him, strips only to his underclothes, too defeated to even wrestle Booker for the shower. And then he tumbles into bed - ignores how cold the space next to him seems to be - when three soft knocks ring out from behind the door.

Joe goes to answer, partially taken aback to find Nicky, arms wrapped around himself like the safehouse doesn't have central heating, eyes on the floor for entirely too long before they come up to meet Joe's.

Joe steps aside to let Nicky in and closes the door behind them. 

"Are you -" Joe begins, at the same time Nicky starts, "listen -"

Silence hangs between them for another moment before Joe starts again.

"Tesoro, are you hurt - ?" he says, then kicks himself for allowing himself to slip, even given the situation and how little he's been able to think clearly since Nicky had stepped into Stefano's loft.

Nicky shakes his head vigorously. "Fine," he says, but his voice is cracked.

 _He's just killed a man_ , Joe reminds himself _, and not just any other man, but a man he's known since childhood._

"He - " Nicky starts again. "He - he was going to _kill_ you -" 

And at that, Joe is viciously aware that Nicky is trying to justify what he's done, to Joe or to himself, Joe is not sure; all he knows in this moment is that another dangerous man the city doesn't need will be put into the ground, and Nicky doesn't deserve to feel anything else but relief. 

"I know," Joe says, and he steps forward without meaning to, arms outstretched in case Nicky might need them. "I know, tesoro."

And that does it, the last of Nicky's composure evaporates, and he's sinking into Joe's arms with deep, guttural sobs. "Oh, _Joe—_ "

"It's okay," Joe says back, arms around Nicky now, blinking against the copious amounts of wool in Nicky's scarf. "You're okay. You're okay, tesoro."

Nicky responds to that like it's his name, gaze snapping up, head tilting towards Joe painfully slowly, and it takes the immense willpower of every nerve ending in his body to not just swoop down and comfort him in a series of kisses. 

He doesn't need to. Nicky crushes their lips together, unceremoniously, admittedly sloppily, but Joe doesn't care; just shoves away his insurmountable shock and kisses him back.

Joe nearly trips over his own feet as he follows in Nicky's direction where he is inviting Joe to plaster him up against the the bedroom's wall. But he manages, avoids Nicky's pyjama bottoms because he wants Nicky to know that he and he alone is in charge of how this all unfolds, so he ends up with hands in Nicky's hair, then on his shoulder, then one on the back of his neck, the other scrambling to find leverage as he brings a leg up for Nicky to rut on.

And Nicky does, an uncoordinated mess, not exactly like it's his first time but like he's too enthusiastic to care about composure.

Then the grinding stops, and Joe feels Nicky's palm find its way to his chest, and he assumes Nicky just needs to grip at his shirt for leverage. But then the hand pushes, insistent, and Joe pulls away from where he'd been busy sucking a dark spot into Nicky's neck.

Even so, Nicky presses at his chest again, and it is clear as day that he wants all of this to stop.

And anything he wants, Joe thinks. But it hurts still, and the silence between them is more painful than any other explanation Nicky can offer.

Nicky is breathing heavy through his nose, looking ashamedly at the closest wall to his right, refusing to meet Joe's eyes.

The dam breaks, and Joe is unable to stop the overflow of thoughts - had he been too rough? Had he been too fast? Was Nicky still thinking of Stefano?

Was he just incapable of ever loving Joe the same way again?

"I," Nicky stammers, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have - ." 

Joe licks his lips from where he stands an arm's length apart, his hands on his hips. "Nicky, I -"

Nicky shakes his head, just says through a shaky voice, "I'm sorry." 

"No," Joe assures, "no, don't be -"

But Nicky moves and suddenly disappears behind Joe's bedroom door, and then he is gone. 

.

It's going on one week before Joe hears from Nicky about anything at all. If the past half year has taught him anything it would be how to cope with this situation, not at all new - but still, he can't, he won't, and the sketch of Nicky in his room remains covered where it's been propped up in the corner, wether Joe hear's Booker's incoming footsteps or not.

If Nicky doesn't need Joe's help processing the situation, if he'd prefer to lick his wounds in private, then that's his prerogative, Joe chastises himself. But he can't forget how Nicky tasted that night, can't forget the way their bodies fell perfectly together against the rough drywall of the safehouse bedroom. Can't forget how Nicky had initiated it, how that had been his panic response, how he'd been confronted with the thought of losing Joe forever. 

_That had been it, right?_ he asks himself instead of Booker, because Booker's pretty much exhausted any and all advice left that he can give Joe, and they both want to avoid sounding like broken records.

So Joe ends up in his room, alternating between staring at the ceiling, bingewatching shitty reality TV, and trying to fit in some sleep before Andy inevitably calls them back. And how he'll have to put a front around Nicky like last week had never happened.

His phone buzzes. _Nicky,_ it reads, and _shit am I prophet?_ Joe wonders, almost aloud.

 _Hello_ , reads the text. _How are you?_

Joe sits up at that, and oh god, are his fingers _trembling_ \- ?

 _I'm okay,_ he texts back, _are you okay?_

 _Yes I'm okay,_ Nicky texts back in record time. The speech bubbles come up for a moment, disappear, then they come up again: _Actually, I wanna talk in person, if that's okay with you._

 _Of course_ , Joe texts back, _Booker's here, if that's an issue at all._

To that Nicky says, _I'm at Quynh's, if you'd prefer more privacy._

That's all Joe needs to be told. His fingers fly across the keypad. _Be there in twenty._

But he's there in ten, sitting in the parking lot of the apartment complex, hyping himself up for - for _what_ , exactly? He and Nicky were just going to have a police exchange, be adults about everything, not throw themselves at each other like a couple of horny teenagers. There's no reason he should be prolonging this, no reason for him to feel nervous.

When he reaches Quynh's apartment, he barely has to knock twice. 

"Joe," Nicky greets, before he even gets the door open fully.

"Nicky," Joe returns and steps into the apartment. It looks the same as it had the last couple of months ago Joe had stopped by. Spacious, pristine, a large mahogany table in it's center. "Nice place," he says, and gets the beginnings of a smile.

"I'd hope so," Nicky says. 

Joe moves towards the table, where he spots several of Nicky's tools from Quynh's studio strewn about, a large lamp hanging from the wall to shine down upon a Ruben that looks about halfway restored, perhaps only the second painting Nicky's gotten to work on since they had been able to uncover Valerio's collection. 

"Gotta keep myself busy somehow," Nicky explains from behind Joe. It's then that Joe realizes that Quynh's most likely at the studio - which she'd pretty much _banned_ Nicky from entering and has yet to change her stance and rightfully so, since that side of town had fallen into the Merricks in recent weeks. 

"I understand," Joe says, and studies the contents of the painting for a second more, takes in Nicky's hard work. "It's beautiful."

Nicky smiles. "It's all I do every day. The lady across the hall, Ms. Penderghast - she thought Quynh lived alone until last week. Now she thinks we're married."

Joe looks at him pointedly. "Oh, you'll be able to survive that. Ms. Grange thought we were roommates."

"She's seventy-eight," Nicky reasons, "and in her defense, she came around much better then we thought she would. "

Their laugh at that, and it rings together in Joe's ears like a symphony.

Then he wonders why Nicky's asked him here - wonders what is left for them to talk about. His heart races with it, and _especially_ at the way Nicky looks at him through his lashes as their laughter begins to die own. 

"I'm sorry about last night," Nicky cuts into it immediately, cheeks red. "That was...a mistake."

 _Ouch_ , Joe doesn't say.

"Shit, I mean - " Nicky stammers, "that's _not_ what I meant, just - I was acting juvenile. And that's wasn't okay."

"You were upset," Joe justifies. "Stefano, and - and what happened...I mean, that wasn't part of the plan.'

"No," Nicky quietly agrees, "it wasn't."

"I'm sorry," Joe says next, "for being controlling."

Nicky rolls his eyes, but not at Joe's sentiment. "Don't be. You were right. I was being stubborn." 

"I mean," Joe offers, "I was being stubborn, too."

"I almost got myself killed," Nicky says lowly. "Almost got _you_ killed."

"I mean, so did I," Joe reasons, which...is the wrong thing to say, _entirely_.

"What, so we're _even_?" Nicky snaps. He's gravitating towards Joe in a way he doesn't seem to realize. 

"No," Joe says immediately, "no, that's not what I meant -"

"Then what did you mean?" Nicky demands, and now he's dangerously close, eyes flashing deep and dark like a sea at night. "You almost died because I made a _shitty_ call, and it reminded me of how incapable I am of losing you, so - " he gestures between the two of them. "So what does - does _any_ of this mean -"

"It means I'm _never_ going to forgive myself," Joe admits, _loudly,_ distantly grateful Quynh isn't around to hear any of this, "it means Stefano wasn't your fault or Andy's fault, it was _my_ fault because none of this was ever supposed to happen - and Nicolo, please, _please_ understand I am not trying to guilt trip you, or to make you feel any other way you choose to feel but -" he pauses, curses, puts his hands on his hips. 

"I _love_ you," Joe says, means it like he always does, convinces himself this isn't just word vomit but something Nicky absolutely has to know. "I love you, I'd die for you if it meant keeping you safe, I'd run this city into the ground, I'd put all the Merrick's heads on pikes, I'd burn the Lebedevs alive, I - " he interrupts himself because Nicky is staring at him, lips pressed together, eyes blown wide. Like he's challenging Joe to continue.

"And I don't know if I can," Joe says next, "but it doesn't mean I won't try. And I'm not asking you to feel the same. I'm asking you to...let me keep you safe. Let me take care of you. Let me make sure what happened with Merrick never happens again-"

He almost doesn't notice how he can practically feel Nicky's breath hot against his lips, until Nicky brings two finger to his lips, feather light, lets them linger there for moments before pulling them away, parting Joe's lips experimentally. "I do," Nicky says, and Joe doesn't immediately grasp what he's talking about -

He takes Joe's hand, guides it so that now his fingers press against the plushness of Nicky's lips. Nicky kisses Joe's index, moves expertly to his middle. "Feel the same."

He's moving Joe's hand up his face now, so he can press a kiss against his palm, and Joe wonders, distantly, if Nicky somehow _knows_ it's the same palm that had been sketching him for weeks. "I just don't have the...same level of eloquence as you to articulate it," Nicky says, dangerously low, "but...I feel the same."

It's an invitation. It's more. 

Joe presses his other palm to Nicky's other cheek, kisses him deeply, like it's the last time, even though he knows, _somehow he knows,_ that it's far from it.

"I -" Nicky says into his mouth, and then goes in again for another kiss like he's incapable of being without Joe's lips for a second. He abandons any attempt to string together any type of sentence, instead pulls at the front of Joe's jacket, practically manhandling him into his room.

They finally pull away now, Joe in a hasty attempt to get his clothes off and _fuck_ this cold weather, he could be naked and pliant and at Nicky's mercy if he wasn't layered as all hell -

Nicky helps him, significantly less clothed in just a shirt and sweats, and he gets Joe's sweater off, helps him get shirt over his head now too, Joe crushing their lips together and fumbling for his belt as he does it. The heater is warm, almost overpowering in Nicky's bedroom that Joe doesn't immediately feel any kind of coolness against his ass - bare now, as he kicks away a messy pile of his own clothing. 

Suddenly, Joe moves him in the direction of the bed, watching hungrily as Nicky falls into it. 

"Lie back," Joe whispers, and Nicky goes, doesn't think twice, sliding up the mattress to pillow his head. 

Joe follows his lead, falling on top of Nicky to plant open mouthed kisses on his lips, his jaw...lets his teeth graze a nipple as he continues his descent. And then he reaches Nicky's boxers, and pulls at them teasingly with his teeth, grinning at the way Nicky clicks his tongue at him, urging him on. So Joe does, pulls Nicky's boxers away completely, shoving them away to join Joe's clothes on the floor.

Nicky's cock is pink and swollen and dripping with pre come already. And Joe wants nothing, _has_ wants nothing more in the last half year than to taste Nicky this way again. But he has other ideas for tonight.

He's pulling at Nicky's legs now, until they're hanging over his shoulders, heels grazing Joe's flanks. 

Joe feels the flex of Nicky's hamstrings as he begins to lick him open. And it's melancholic to him in a way that he can't recognize, because he can't count how many times he's done this with Nicky and still feels like a bumbling, nervous wreck.

If anything, Nicky's mewls indicate he's having far from a terrible time. He's got a hand in Joe's hair, fingers slipping through the cropped cut of his hair, the other gripping usefully at the thin sheets beneath them in a painful attempt to follow his own advice, to keep quiet so Quynh would be able to get through a decent night of sleep. 

It's hard for Joe to keep that in mind as he continues to eat Nicky out, trying to get him to continue making all those lovely sounds, milking this for all its worth. 

Then the weight beneath him shifts, and he is suddenly aware that it's because Nicky is in the midst of an attempt to sit up, and Joe is caught between gripping at his hips tighter, pinning them in place just to prove that this is not a dream, to make sure Nicky doesn't slip through his fingers.

" _Joe_ ," Nicky calls from above him, and Joe can't tell if he's asking Joe to stop or urging him to continue.

But Nicky is insistent, impatient now, summoning Joe to follow his lead, and Joe does - follows Nicky when he beckons him close enough for a kiss, the two of them properly leveled now. Nicky takes advantage and flips them unceremoniously, Joe now on his back, Nicky hovering over him with eyes impossibly dark. Bends down for another kiss, tasting himself on Joe's breath. 

Nicky begins to lower himself until he is at level with Joe's cock, and Joe thinks _no,_ _I won't last like this -_

But then Nicky takes him in hand where he is already rock hard, teases at his head lazily with a thumb before taking him into his mouth altogether. Joe's head falls back against the mattress, finds one hand in Nicky's hair where he starts to pull, hard enough and _exactly_ the way Nicky likes it. 

That's all it takes to transform Joe into a blabbering mess. He's shaking his head, a physical reaction to his own disbelief that any of this could be happening, but it somehow is, and Nicky continues to suck him off like he was made for it, presses his tongue flat against the underside of Joe's cock, laps at the skin there and then sinks down the shaft until his nose is buried in Joe's curls. Ignores the way Joe presses on his shoulder in clear warning that he is just about ready, his lips stubbornly locked around Joe like a vice.

And that's all it takes, and Joe's coming in a way he's never known before.

Nicky sucks him through it, hums like _he's_ satisfied. He clambers up, his arms vibrating on either side of Joe's torso as he swoops down for an open mouthed kiss. They taste each other then; Joe from when he had licked Nicky open moments before, Nicky from when he had _just_ swallowed around Joe's cock, which he's slowly beginning to realize isn't exactly limp anymore, pressed against the small of Nicky's back where he subconsciously grinds against Joe's front.

Nicky goes all out now, launching an assault, biting at Joe’s lower lip so that ensuing, surprising yelp is enough to throw Joe off guard, long enough for Nicky to take both of Joe's wrists where they're gripping his waist like a vice. Joe is on autopilot now, letting Nicky move him wherever and however Nicky wants, and Nicky pulls them over his head, guides them so that his fingers loop around the cold metal of the headboard.

Nicky doesn't tell him not to move. Just presses down on his inner wrists once more before letting go completely, and Joe feels his finger go knuckle white as he scrambles to obey.

It's not easy. Especially not with the way Nicky looks just about ready to eat him alive. 

But he has to obey. Because Nicky _trusts him_ to obey. 

Nicky slides his hands down Joe's forearms to allow them to rest on his chest, heaving with uncontrollable, aroused breaths; Joe mouthwateringly eyes Nicky's cock, swollen and hard and pink where it rests forgotten against Nicky's stomach. Nicky must catch him because his fingers graze Joe's nipples in small, uncoordinated movements. Joe moans despite himself as the buds turn an embarrassing shade of red. Satisfied with his work, Nicky leans forward to take one of hardened buds into his mouth, and Joe keens at the sudden loss of friction of his dick against the small of Nicky's back. But it is nothing compared to the way Nicky switches to Joe's left nipple now, leaving a trail of kisses in the skin between as he takes the bud between his teeth this time, gently, making Joe see see stars. 

Nicky pulls away, but barely allows Joe even the chance to catch his breath. Just looks up, eyes like sea glass and asks, "are you with me?"

"Yes," Joe pants, "yes, always - "

Nicky slides back down at that, until the small of his back is rubbing against Joe's erection again, and Joe keens at the loss for a moment before realizing Nicky is reaching for where he'd tucked the lube to the side, popping the bottle open and slathering a generous amount all over Joe's cock, mixing it with the slick of Joe's release before. Then he lifts himself from where he'd been resting on his haunches, and slips a lube slicked fingers into his own rim, body bucking at the intrusion. He smiles, _infuriatingly,_ at the way Joe seems to react to that. 

"Don't be jealous, hayati," he says, all but confirming what Joe already knows to be true, that Nicky is going to ride him, that Nicky is going to bring him to the edge of oblivion again and then tip him over without a second thought, that he's doing to do it while Joe's already an overstimulated, spent mess. 

Nicky stays like that for a moment more before slipping the finger out entirely. Loose and open enough by his own standards at least with the way Joe had licked him open before, and he also enjoyed the impossible stretch of it all. He shifts until his hips are lined up accordingly. And then, unhurriedly, he starts to sink.

It's devastatingly hot. 

Then Nicky begins to move. Torturously slow. Taking his time and doing it on purpose, wringing out as many moans as he can from Joe and his achingly overstimulated cock.

The challenge of clinging to the headboard as opposed to Nicky's waist nothing but a distant memory; the headboard is Joe's life support now, and he can feel his fingers go white knuckle hot as he keeps his eyes on Nicky, who continues to take his time, wringing out all of Joe's moans like he has nowhere else he needs to be.

Nicky continues bouncing on Joe's cock, but his movements are slurred now, and his panting has gone shallow. It doesn't stop him. The gleam in his eye, it can only mean one thing...he _has to_ make Joe come.

And Joe, he is _completely_ inclined to do whatever Nicky wants, is at his mercy entirely, the thought of moving his hands distant and impertinent, so he only does what he _can_ , what Nicky hadn't specified he wasn't necessarily not allowed to do. He plants his feet on the bed and fucks up into Nicky, into his sweet, tight ass. It's all Nicky needs to lose at least some of his control, and he falls forward, palms on either side of Joe's head, his movements now meeting Joe's thrusts near perfectly, a symphony if anything. 

Joe is close. He is unbearably close. He never much liked coming before Nicky did - hell, if the tables were turned tonight and Nicky had his cock in Joe's ass, Joe would still beckon him to chase his release first. But if this is what Nicky wants...

When Joe comes, _yet again_ , it is white hot. Through the haze of his rapture he still remembers not to move, to keep his hands where Nicky'd put them, and in the absence of pulling Nicky down and riding out his orgasm with his forehead against Nicky's neck, he bites down on the skin of his upper arm instead. Nicky coaxes him through it, almost refusing to stop moving. And from the corner of his eye, Joe can tell that he is watching and enjoying _all_ of this.

When Joe pulls away from his arm he sees teethmarks that will definitely be there tomorrow. He blinks back to the delicious sight of Nicky on top of him still, staring down at him through half-lidded eyes. Joe lets out a sigh, deep and heavy, letting his legs fall away from him limply. 

"Nicky," Joe pants, "Nicky, please - please, let me -"

"Shh," Nicky says instead, and the palms of his hands run up and down Joe's flank, petting, comforting, like he'd done anything more than just lie there and take it. Which he had, and it hadn't exactly been easy - but even then, Joe wants desperately to take Nicky apart now, to make him feel just as good.

Nicky's left hand stays on Joe's chest, absentmindedly tracing circles into the skin there, his right hand sliding down Joe's flank to now trace at where they're connected. Joe is vibrating with oversensitivity, and the touch alone beckons him to exclaim, which... _infuriatingly_ seems to amuse Nicky, who smiles, tips his head back, lets his hand travel up further towards his own cock. 

But Joe is not meant to participate, even now.

Joe is meant to watch.

The thought of it might be enough to beckon him to hardness once more, which...wouldn't be a record between them, but it'd still be remarkable. But he is tired, overwhelmed, and this is entirely about Nicky. So he watches as Nicky wraps his hand around his neglected cock now, thumb teasing his head, and Joe is so sure he is salivating, he is so sure the only thing in the world he could ever possibly want right now is to tears his hands away where they're confiscated to the bed frame, to lay Nicky on his back and take care of him.

But he still will not settle for this, no, he urges Nicky on despite the numbness of his own limbs now, replanting his feet on the mattress and thrusting up, driving Nicky's dick further up his own fist and back down again, over and over, until Nicky is a panting mess, spilling hot rivulets of his own come on Joe's front. 

Joe keeps his eyes glued to Nicky through all of it, not the least bit interested in missing a second of this. He wants to commit every moment to memory. And it's not like it's anything out of their usual love-making sessions. No, Joe can't count on one hand how many times he has seen Nicky like this, absolutely spent, fucked out, loose from sex.

Nicky lets out a handful of shaky breaths and then reaches forward, uncoupling himself from Joe, to press a kiss on his lips. This is where they don't need to communicate; no, Joe somehow _knows_ Nicky is permitting touch, so Joe releases his white-knuckled hands from where they still clutching at the bed frame to wrap them around any part of Nicky he can reach, his neck, his shoulder, the sensitive inner flesh of his upper arms-

Nicky pulls away, softly, mouth red and kiss-swollen in a way that makes Joe giddy all over again. He doesn't say a word between them, just reaches across to where he'd ripped his shirt off in the haste of their lovemaking, to wipe down Joe's front and only Joe's front, the space between his own legs a mere afterthought. But then again, Joe remembered nights like this, when Nicky insisted on falling asleep with Joe's come inside him still.

He can’t think about it for too long - coming three times would surely be overdoing it, even for them. But Nicky, _like this_ , for the past six months - Joe would only ever be able to dream of imagining him like this, and he cannot help the way it makes him feel. 

"I love you," Joe says when Nicky tosses the shirt into the hamper. He feels disembodied, unreal, but all he knows is this.

Nicky offers him a smile, warm and somehow tired, and he crawls up the bed next to Joe, pressing a kiss to Joe's forehead where Joe nuzzles into his neck without a second thought.

"I love you, too."

.

He wakes to Nicky's stirring and nothing else. Just the feather light movements that would be insignificant if it were anything else but Nicky, but the mere notion that he'd made Joe come two mind-altering times, that they'd fallen asleep together not long afterward in a sticky, sweaty, heap, that he'd told Nicky what he'd always known, that he'd loved him. That Nicky had said it back.

"G'morning," he mutters ungracefully, blinking into vision Nicky's back against the headboard, grinning at him in a way that almost physically launches Joe into their old apartment, into the hundreds of mornings he'd wake up just like this: Nicky having woken up arguably an hour before, waiting for Joe's company.

It beckons Joe into saying something totally stupid like he normally would, so he starts with, "I have an idea of what I'd like to eat for breakfa-"

But he's caught off by the sound of swift, hurried footsteps just outside, and Nicky reaching forward to clamp his palm over Joe's mouth. 

The footsteps fade. Nicky can't help but snicker. "Sorry, it's just - I think Quynh's home."

Joe's mouth forms an "ah" as Nicky pulls his hand away, not even the least bit offended that Nicky is acting like a literal teenager. Nevermind the nonexistent betting pool Booker had teased him about earlier; as far as the team knew, they were living separately and far from involved. Add to that Quynh being shameless in making a litany of threats towards Joe in particular about working things out with Nicky.

"Did you sleep okay?" Nicky asks in the same hushed tone, and Joe can't help the giddy feeling he gets at the...normalcy of all this. No Merrick, no Julian, no paintings, no guns...just him and Nicky, and this moment that belonged entirely to them.

Joe flashes him a dopey grin. "Best in ages."

"I'm glad," Nicky says, his ears stained a furious pink just like the first time they'd fallen into bed together, Nicky tripping on all his excuses about never having done anything like this before.

Then something falls over his face that Joe can't quite pin down.

"Tesoro?" Joe asks, can't help the way he reaches out on instinct, fingers lightly brushing against the pale skin of Nicky's cheek.

"I'm fine," Nicky says. A beat, and then, "I missed you."

Joe feels his face grow hot or maybe cold, he's not sure - is just aware of the relief flooding over him to hear Nicky say those words, in that order. "I missed _you_ ," he echoes lamely, because they've apparently regressed to Nicky making him a blabbering mess.

Nicky leans into Joe's touch. He sighs, and he doesn't look at all content. "This can't be it, right?"

Joe's thumb now traces his brow bone. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Nicky finds his words, "I mean - I don't know. Just that this can't be it."

And Joe knows, instantaneously, what Nicky seems to mean. "No," he says, fingers still tracing his face feather light. "Believe it or not, I don't see myself retiring here."

"Where would you go?" Nicky asks.

"Ah," Joe corrects, and he pulls Nicky down to say, "where would I take you?"

"Oh?" Nicky aks inquisitively, and Joe can feel his smile against their kiss. "Where would you take me?"

Joe is almost tempted to avoid the question entirely in favor of just tasting Nicky like this for the rest of the morning. But he pulls away, softly, presses another chaste kiss before admitting, "Malta."

Nicky sits abruptly from where he'd been lazing against Joe's body. "And why's that?"

Joe shrugs. "My parents used to take Soumaya and I there every other vacation. Haven't been back since, you know..."

Nicky reaches for him, puts a hand over his in place of Joe having to finish the sentence, finish the memory. 

"Well," Nicky considers, "papà did love Gozo. He'd alway take mamma there for their anniversary. They brought me along one summer, but just left me with the nanny. So I am sure there's a lot to Malta I have yet to see."

Joe tightens Nicky's grip on his hand, grounding himself to reality. But the thought is clear and it's perfect - Nicky on the beaches. Joe _sketching_ Nicky on the beaches. 

He almost doesn't feel Nicky's hand go slack before he pulls it away completely. His eyes tear away too, staring unevenly at the linen of the bedsheet, before bringing his hands up to his face.

"Tesoro?" Joe asks. 

"Im sorry," Nicky says through his hands. When he pulls them away, Joe sees tear tracks. 

"No," Joe says, "no, don't be - "

"He knew," Nicky says suddenly, and Joe pales.

"Who knew?" Joe asks, and his hand curls now around Nicky's knee, encouraging him to find his words.

"He...knew," Nicky repeats. " _Julian_. About me. About papà. Everything," Nicky admits. 

"How do you know?" Joe asks, and he's sitting up in full now. 

"He told me," Nicky shrugs. "More or less. Figured it out when we were together, just didn't tell Merrick. And then he...he saw me. With you, and...." he sighs. "When we were together, Julian and I, he had a lot of - of -"

Joe wonders for a moment if Nicky is struggling to find the word in English - or perhaps looking for a word that will not have Joe up in arms about a dead man, and one that he had been the one to kill.

"Control issues," Nicky settles on. "I'd call it jealousy, but...that was more my style. I was scared he was seeing somebody else behind my back, and he was consumed with this idea that he wasn't good enough for me. That any time, he was at risk of me saying fuck it and just leaving him, leaving us behind. He never told me, but I _knew_ that's what all this was about. His ego. His inability to confront any kind of future without the two of us." Nicky laughs humorlessly. "After I left, and when he'd found out that I was staying with Quynh, he sent one of his cop buddies over to let me know how horribly _he_ was taking things. Like - like he was the victim in all this."

Joe rubs circles into Nicky's skin, encourages him to go at his own pace. This is the most Nicky has ever said about Julian it can't be easy. But there is a reason why Nicky is telling him this - there's a reason it's only coming up now.

“I - I don't want to sound like a broken record, Nicky, but - none of what happened was your fault."

Nicky nods his acknowledgement. "The night you struck a deal with Merrick, or whatever, I don't know - he followed you home. To _o_ _ur_ home. Saw me, and figured, all of a sudden, I'm some criminal mastermind, right?"

Nicky laughs through the absurdity of it all, but Joe doesn't find any of this even remotely funny.

"He was _incensed_. At his wit's end. And just an all around sore loser who wanted to get back at me, at you, at _us._ I confronted him about it at Merrick's and of course he denied it, but...I mean, I may be clueless," Nicky continues. "But I'm not stupid."

Joe shakes his head. "You're not clueless," he affirms, gaze unyielding. "You were just lied to."

And there it is, the crushing weight of his guilt, his shame - which is not fair, because that certainly wasn't Nicky's intention. But it is hollow in his chest like a ghost, probably will be for the rest of his life. 

"I'm telling you this because - " Nicky suddenly says. His eyes flicker to Joe's lips. "Because all of this was inevitable. I'm bearing my father's sins, wether I want to or not. And if it hadn't been you Julian saw that night, I wouldn't even be here."

It's a harsh truth. One Joe has completely withheld from even accepting, or even acknowledging around Nicky, because it would be unforgivable and completely manipulative to make Nicky feel like he was trapped, because his father's poor decisions had led to Julian, to Joe, to all of this.

"It shouldn't have happened at all," Joe says. "I shouldn't have - shouldn't have _lied_ to you -"

"But you did," Nicky says, not sternly, but not necessarily forgivingly either. "You did. You lied to me and it hurt in more ways than one. And then you put everything on the line to get me back, and you did, and now I know much more about papà then I ever would have. Now I know I have the resources to make a difference, to make this city a better place. To do what you do."

"Nicky, what I do -" he licks his lips. "I fell into this. I had a choice. You didn't. And we can still fix that. This has to be about what you _want_ \- "

"What I _want,_ " Nicky says, voice unwavering, "is to move forward. With _you_. That means no more lies. Even if you think it's meant to protect me, because...we both know I have a shitty track record of getting looped into things anyway." 

Joe nods his promise. His head feels heavy with it, and he opens his mouth to promise Nicky so much more, but his voice is caught in his throat, and he's suddenly aware that he is crying.

" _H_ _ayati_ ," Nicky says, and takes him in his hands. 

"I don't," Joe says pathetically, "I don't deserve you."

Nicky shakes his head, slow and sure. "It's not about deserving."

.

When they do actually decide to get out of bed it's midday, far past breakfast and even maybe even brunch, and Nicky leads Joe out of the bedroom with the promise of a mouthwatering lunch he'd be able to fashion with all the ingredients in the fridge set to expire. 

He stops right in his tracks, failing to even warn Joe, who walks right into Nicky's back with a "Nicky, _what -"_

And then he catches on quickly, looking up to find Quynh, less than amused, her hair in a messy top knot, wearing one of Andy's black Janis Joplin t-shirts that skirts past her knees. "Oh. Hey, Joe."

Joe can feel his face contort into something painful. Nevermind that he and Quynh caught each other in these situations a handful of times because they'd attended the same college. " _Heeeey_ , Quynh."

Whatever front Quynh is putting up falters and then falls away completely as she starts to snort. "You just missed Andy," she explains. "Who owes me about a hundred bucks, by the way."

 _Fucking Booker,_ Joe doesn't say, because Nicky is looking between the two of them confusedly, and then accusingly. 

_And Nile_ , Joe reminds himself, _she's not exempt from this, either._

Quynh ends up being a blessing in disguise.

She refuses Joe's offer to buy her silence, ends up texting the rest of them _lucrative_ details about Joe being in her apartment, about him specifically coming out of Nicky's room looking "fucked well into next Sunday" - and then turning her phone off for the onslaught of texts that Joe is sure follows.

But she makes up for it with lunch. Joe's on his second bowl of vermicelli noodle, Nicky's on his second glass of wine, saying it's five o'clock somewhere in a way that makes he and Quynh cringe. 

But it's perfect - this is perfect.

It's a paradox, because even with everything that's happened - this is the way things are supposed to be. 

Him and Nicky. Him and Quynh. All of them together, a family, a fortress _,_ protecting each other, protecting the city.

Nicky always goes on and on about Joe's eyes, the deep dark pools of them, his inescapable crow's feet - but right now, Joe watches Nicky eyes, watches the creases in them as he holds on to Quynh with one hand and onto his glass of wine with the other, laughing at something stupid Joe's just said that he can't bother to remember.

He watches Nicky like it's the first time. He feels the thrill of possibility, and it's beautiful. 

Maybe tonight they'll go see a movie.

Maybe they'll stop by Joe and Booker's, _Booker be damned_ , and Joe will show him the sketch he's been working on for the last month.

Or maybe they'll retreat back to Nicky's room and spend the rest of the day melting into each other's arms. It will be like the first night they fell into bed, almost two years ago now. 

But that was Joe, and _this_ is Yusuf. 

And Yusuf wouldn't have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [not that any of you asked but. this is what nicky looks like in joe's drawing](https://64.media.tumblr.com/13dcb644e19c54353016bee411c61adc/b6cd88eeec594a4a-ef/s1280x1920/aa84fe4af041a1d76102676b5b2c5d8933059a0a.jpg)  
>    
> ....so that's it, I guess! Unless I come back to this 'verse in the future, which is definitely a possibility!
> 
> Thank you guys for riding this out with me - for being on board with this niche fic that began with "wow, marwan kenzari was really hot in wolf" and turned into a plot-heavy, angsty mess! I couldn't have asked for better readers, I'm so grateful for all your comments, and i love you guys!
> 
> Hope you all have a wonderful 2021!


End file.
